REVIEW

"TV matters. It matters to everyone."

So says Lizzie Goldberg-Jones, a little girl who wants to get on TV for reasons that matter. She has two gay dads and a little brother being bullied in school as a result. If she can only win a contest to be featured on a kids show, maybe people will see them as a normal family.

Such is the premise of Dusty and the Big Bad World, Cusi Cram's comedy premiering at Denver Center Theatre Company. Cram knows the story well; a writer for the PBS show Arthur, she was around when another show on that network was targeted by the secretary of education when it featured a child with two moms.

In Cram's play, the secretary of education is again involved, this time in the persona of a conservative Christian with a Southern accent (why is there always a Southern accent?) named Marianne.

We meet Marianne on her first day on the job. Charlotte Booker does a masterful job of making Marianne comical but not a caricature; we may not agree with this woman, but she is definitely sincere. She begins nearly greasy with glee, crowing over her new gig and protesting, "I don't do it for the money" - which is something that only people with money can say. And then she realizes just how smug she sounds.

"I always want to appear humble, humble in the state of my happiness," she says before setting about to destroy an animated character on public television.

Sequences like these demonstrate Cram's gift for characterization, beating us to our criticisms of their flaws and showing people who are conscious of how they present themselves to the world. Her finest creation here is neither Lizzie (who, played by Chloe Nosan, is written far too precocious and not vulnerable enough) nor Marianne, but the secretary's assistant, Karen, a woebegone, overeducated office drone constantly teetering on an edge we can't see until late in the play.

Jeanine Serralles is a marvel in the role, stooped in frustration and fear, then gradually standing straighter, all the while representing young women who realize their privilege and also realize it's not enough to win them a meaningful existence. Serralles unleashes a stunning speech of high comedy and deep pain, in which she describes, in very personal terms, the fragility of upward mobility.

In opposition to the government are the fine souls at PBS, who include the producer for Dusty, a far less developed role played by Sam Gregory, and the programming head, Jessica, given a straightforward professionalism (to some degree of sacrifice) by Kelly McAndrew.

Dusty and the Big Bad World takes on no less than the culture wars, and while the recent inauguration may signal a shift in the political landscape, it's one of less than 60 percent. Neither side can declare victory when it comes to American values. But almost all the ambiguity lies in the role of Karen. The others are given only slight inflections of subtlety - the liberal is an overbearing dogmatist, while the conservative has a soul - that still make a comfy setting for predominantly leftist audiences.

The biggest problem, though, is one of tone. Kent Thompson has directed entire scenes more like the classic farces he enjoys than the darker humor they demand. Cram gives the male producer jokes about his wife, perhaps to show he's not entirely enlightened, but as played they feel like they should be accompanied by a rim shot. Another scene requires Serralles to play Karen as a bumbling Deep Throat.

This is a play with some big ideas that don't need to be sugarcoated. It's at its most affecting when looking at the nature of work and disappointment, and just how devastating the combination can be. Those are ideas that can stand on their own and that provoke laughter that's darker, more painful and ultimately more compelling.

Dusty and the Big Bad World

* Grade: B

* When and where: through February at the Stage Theatre, Denver Center for the Performing Arts

* Cost: $25 and up

* Information: 303-893-4100