When we go to the theatre (especially if the plan is to write about the experience), we try to leave everything going on in the world offstage in the lobby. But sometimes, that’s easier said than done. This was the case when we went to see Moss Park just a few hours after the mayor of Toronto had announced that, while he had indeed smoked crack cocaine, he wasn’t going to do anything at all to atone for his misdeeds.

So it’s a good thing that the character flaws and immaturity of the recalcitrant Ford are shared, to a certain degree, by Bobby (Graeme McComb) in George F. Walker’s new play, a sequel to his celebrated 1993 play Tough!, which first introduced the responsibility-adverse Bobby and his pregnant girlfriend Tina, both in their teens. (Tough! has been a nearly continuous success in Canada, especially as programming for younger audiences.)

It’s been twenty years since that play debuted, but only two years have passed since the events of Tough! for Bobby and Tina (played here by Haley McGee). She’s pregnant—again—and facing eviction from the apartment she shares with her mother; he’s just been fired after a disastrous first day at yet another in a succession of lousy jobs. Of course, as Bobby explains to Tina, there were “extenuating circumstances” for his series of terrible mistakes. In fact, all Bobby seems able to think about is himself. He blames all his failures on the “post-traumatic stress” of being laid off from a factory job over a year ago. He professes his love for Tina, and says he wants to be a good dad. “There’s nothing more in this world that I want than to get it together!” he proclaims, but he has no idea where to start, leaving it all on Tina’s shoulders.

McGee does a fine job of portraying both the desperation and the strong will of the young mother, who has matured much more quickly than her daughter’s deadbeat dad. She calls Bobby on all his bullshit, and threatens to walk away if he can’t talk about their problems, rather than the problems he has with dealing with problems. Every option they have must be explored, and it’s here that Walker pulls a lot of humour out of the pair’s discouraging situation, slowly revealing layers of dysfunction in their extended family and friends. Ultimately, Tina observes, “OK, so it’s just us.”

This is, of course, the big difference between Toronto’s wealthy mayor and Moss Park‘s underprivileged pair. The cycle of poverty is grinding away at the young couple, whose options may have to include the food bank, or moving in with an alcoholic and abusive father. They have next to no support system, save for Tina’s friend Jill, who looms large off-stage but doesn’t appear this time around (in the post-show talkback, McGee revealed that Walker has further plans for these three characters).

Tina isn’t willing to accept any excuses, because she has the good sense to recognize that resenting her situation won’t change it. Bobby, on the other hand, thinks the condos encroaching on their still-shabby neighborhood are filled with people who might not miss their stuff if he or his friends were to pilfer it. That the sensible Tina doesn’t rule out crime when the option comes up for discussion is a sign of her desperation—but what will they tell her unborn child when and if it’s born into the world, she wonders?

Walker’s words and characters are very realistic, but he subtly packs months of normal developments into just over an hour of theatre. And Tina and Bobby—even naive and self-centred Bobby—are exceptionally articulate. It’s debatable—in a good way—how much optimism we should have at the play’s end. Will they be able to stay out of a shelter? Keep their second child? Help Bobby stay “on track and focused?” In any case, it seems like there’s more story to come, and, unlike the inevitable further revelations about Rob Ford, some of it could be positive.

What else is happening:

Today In Theatre at Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace