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Christina Anderson's Inked Baby, which opened at Playwrights Horizons last night, starts of as a delicately and warmly crafted exploration of the complicated emotions that surround surrogate pregnancies. At about the halfway point of this play, which does introduce a playwright of great promise, its focal point changes, and it becomes a play about the health ramifications of environmental pollution. While the corporate dumping has a direct impact on the former aspect of the play – Gloria (LaChanze) may have been unable to become pregnant because of the unhealthy conditions that have surrounded her all of her life – there's a strange disconnect between the two aspects of the play, which though intriguing never fully satisfies.

The woman to whom Gloria and her husband Greer (Damon Gupton) turn to help begin their family is Gloria's sister Lena (Angela Lewis), who has just received a healthy severance package from the New York financial firm where she worked, making her return to the suburban town where she was born possible. As "Baby" charts the awkward tensions that arise from Lena's surrogacy – which occurred not via in vitro fertilization, but from the act of Greer making love to her – the play fascinates and features a trio of intricately etched performances. LaChanze and Gupton beautifully capture both hopefulness that Gloria and Greer feel about the new addition to their family and the jealousy, suspicion and ill-ease that crops up in the marriage. Lewis deftly brings to life both Lena's ambivalence about her return home and her genuine affection for her sister and brother-in-law.

When the episodic play, staged by Kate Whoriskey, currently represented off-Broadway with Ruined, darts to a doctor's examining room, and not one where Lena goes for her regular checkups, though, "Baby" misfires. This examination centers on Lena's high school friend Ky (Nikkole Salter), who finds herself being "sampled" at the request of her employers. A medical assistant not only cuts some of Ky's hair, but also extracts a tooth. Anderson's writing, and Whoriskey's direction, almost make the moment seem vaguely like something out of a futuristic sci fi tale, and the sequence jars the audience immeasurably, making it difficult to return to the more intimate and straightforward family drama that has been unfolding.

Anderson continues to keep the "sampling" process something of a mystery as she also details the escalating problems between Greer and Gloria, which include an affair that Gloria has with Odlum (Che Ayende), a tattoo artist from the bad side of town. The affair is, of course, a way in which Gloria can reassert her femininity in the face of her sister's pregnancy on her behalf. It's potentially poignant and pungent storytelling, but as the "Baby" vacillates from the family drama to the more ominous, and somewhat conspiracy-laden, plot about the health problems facing the characters, theatergoers remain strangely detached, despite the winning performances.

Whoriskey's sometimes too leisurely direction, and Andromache Chalfant's scenic design – which frames the action within white stucco bricks that puts the performers at a strange remove from audiences, only enhances theatergoers' emotional distance from "Baby," which has what should be a crushing denouement. "Baby" represents Anderson's off-Broadway debut as a playwright, and the varied pieces of the script, and its often incisive dialogue, point toward greater things. Inked Baby may not truly satisfy, but it is terrific to see a new voice arrive with such an ambitious piece.

---- Andy Propst

Inked Baby plays at Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd Street). Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 7:30PM; Saturday at 2 & 7:30PM and Sunday at 2 & 7:00PM. Tickets are $50.00 and can be purchased by calling 212-279-4200 or by visiting www.TicketCentral.com. Further information is available online at www.PlaywrightsHorizons.org.