WEEKEND REVIEWS : Stage : In Love Among the Hates of Belfast

SAN DIEGO —  Anyone who promotes positive images of older people will like Graham Reid’s “Remembrance,” at the Old Globe’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage. But those who want plays to live up to their potential will be less enthusiastic.

At 68 and 63, respectively, Bert and Theresa are in love. Yet this is Belfast, and they’re from different sides of the political land mines. He’s Protestant--a former British soldier, no less--and she’s Catholic.

They met in the cemetery, while burying sons who were killed in separate outbreaks of political violence. Their own grown children are horrified that they would woo each other. But these two know their own feelings, and they don’t have time for their own prejudices--if, in fact, they ever had any.

They’re remarkably open-minded. It’s miraculous--which is to say, unbelievable--that they are so untainted by the bitter hatreds that surround them.

Reid avoids dealing with whatever initial suspicions they harbored about each other, by simply not showing us the scene when they met. The play begins after the romance is already rolling. Yet it sounds as if that scene might have been galvanic.

As it is, the play follows a much more conventional path. The fact that the action is set against the troubled backdrop of Northern Ireland assumes a strictly secondary importance, presumably in an attempt to make the play more “universal.”

Apparently it worked; the play had a healthy run in Israel, and a long run continues in New York. Yes, it’s safe to say that anyone will be charmed by this couple, especially as played by Jack Aranson and Victoria Boothby. But it’s too safe, too charming, considering the dramatic storms that lurk in the background.

The acrimony comes entirely from the younger generation. Bert lives with his vile son Victor (William Anton), a police officer who brags about torturing prisoners and talks about moving to South Africa in order to pursue his trade.

Most of his boasts are probably spurious; it’s clear that he likes to use his cruel sense of humor as a weapon whenever possible. Down deep, he believes his father felt the wrong son died. From our knowledge of Victor, it would be easy to feel the same way. But Bert denies it, and we’re supposed to take his word for it.

At least Victor brought his estranged wife Jenny (Lynne Griffin) into the house, and she continues to drop in to see Bert, though one wonders what this level-headed woman ever saw in Victor.

Meanwhile, over in Theresa’s house, one daughter (Susan Barnes) lives at home, obsessively cleaning and avoiding the rest of the world, while the other (Robin Pearson Rose) shows up to moan about her three children and her need for a man, now that her unseen hubby has been locked away for life for murdering someone very much like Bert’s son.

The fact that Theresa hasn’t told Bert about this terrorist son-in-law is the one self-imposed shadow on their relationship, and it leads to some perfunctory drama near the end of this long play. Yet the ending itself, like the beginning, seems designed to lower the theatrical temperature as much as possible. The play just fades away, more or less, and it’s unclear what the future holds for Bert and Theresa.

Reid does draw us into his characters’ lives in the same way that novels and miniseries can do; he writes telling little details, especially about the younger generation, and fluid dialogue. But the play is not as pointed or as moving as it might have been. In its limitations it’s somewhat reminiscent of Philip Kan Gotanda’s “The Wash,” another play about romance in the sixtysomething generation, seen earlier this year at the Mark Taper Forum.

Except for the minor matter of one very audible word pronounced differently by mother and daughter, Andrew J. Traister’s staging is unblemished. He negotiated the arena blocking, on Nick Reid’s tripartite set, without major sight-line problems. And the actors inject life and energy into the proceedings. Jeff Ladman’s sound design adds a few hints of offstage strife, as well as the cooing of pigeons at Theresa’s house. But the play needs less cooing and more strife.

“Remembrance,” Old Globe Theatre, Cassius Carter Centre Stage, Balboa Park, San Diego; Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends June 16. $17.50-$28.50. (619) 239-2255. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.