Norm Foster’s The Love List is a funny play about desire, perfection, and finding that special someone. Nittany Theatre at the Barn’s production, directed by Laura Ann Saxe, was an enjoyable show, though it sometimes lacked polish.

The play opens with Bill—a single statistician in his 50s—and Leon—his unfaithfully married novelist best friend—getting back to Bill’s flat after his birthday dinner. As a present, Leon has signed Bill up for a matchmaking service, run by a gypsy woman. Bill reluctantly agrees to fill out the list of ten qualities he’s looking for in a mate, reminiscing about an earlier love named Justine as he and Leon choose the desirable traits. Shortly after Leon leaves, a woman knocks on Bill’s door and introduces herself as Justine. She behaves as though she and Bill have been dating for a while, but Bill doesn’t know her at all. She embodies the characteristics on Bill’s list, and he decides that even if she’s a prostitute Leon hired and coached for him, she’s eager to sleep with him so it’s worth it to go along with her. But when Leon comes for another visit, he’s as stumped as Bill by the woman’s identity. While she initially seems perfect, many of the traits Bill initially so admired reveal their dark sides as time goes on. When Justine disappears every time she leaves the apartment, Bill decides they had conjured her up by writing the list. And when Leon begins changing the items on the list, Justine changes with the revisions. Bill becomes increasing desperate to have back his ‘perfect’ woman that he rapidly shifts through characteristics on the list, trying to adjust Justine’s personality just as he wants it. Finally, she discovers the list and makes up the characteristics of her ideal man—who looks nothing like Bill—before running off with a colleague from the advertising agency she supposedly works for.

The part of Justine (played by Jocelyn Kotary) is quite a challenging one, as her character changes dramatically, and sometimes rapidly, throughout the play. Kotary handled the variety of roles admirably, going from the (self-described) sexpot polymath who initially wins Bill’s (Dave Saxe) heart, to a domineering ambition driven workaholic, to a blushingly modest Southern belle—complete with a change of accent, from British to deep South—to insecure, to finally self-actualized in choosing her own desired characteristics for a mate.

The show is definitely funny, and the acting was generally strong, but the performances overall weren’t as finished as the other plays I’ve seen at the Barn. The actors didn’t seem to know their parts as well as in previous shows, and they frequently stepped on one another lines. Kotary, Saxe, and John Koch (playing Leon) are undoubtedly fine comic performers, but this show felt like it needed another layer or two of polish.