20, 21 and 22.

The National Black Touring Circuit scored a big hit with its 1992 production of "Williams and Walker''. Now the group is back, this time with a domestic comedy by Ron Milner that is laced with laughter but is also probing and often poignant.

The subject is marriage and, specifically, takes a shrewd look at the differing generational values of Frank and Mattie Cooper, an older black couple whose life experience has embraced the poverty of the rural South, the Second World War and racial conflict. Settled, finally in their own, hard-won home in middle-class Detroit, they rather conveniently rent their upstairs to the younger Sylvester and Laura -- thus providing the back and forth comparisons and lifestyle contrasts that form the thematic thrust of the play.

"Syl'' and Laura Williams, the younger couple, have more easily climbed the ladder to material success during the "yuppie'' 1980s -- but, despite superior education and opportunities, they have also embarked on a no-win, materialistic battle of the sexes.

Not surprisingly, it is the tested and far wiser relationship of the Coopers that lingers in the mind -- not least because these are played by thee marvellous Ruby Dee and Arthur French. Here are two fine actors (repeating their long success in this play) who know how to work an audience -- whether it's to make them laugh or to touch the heart. There are some wonderful vignettes as they recapture, through a series of sometimes clumsily crafted flashback reminiscencess, the story of their 43-year marriage. Unliberated Mattie's role could so easily slip into bathos but Ruby Dee keeps the humour intact while Arthur French provides the bravura comedy: both provide a tenderly comic finale to the play as he struts around the kitchen in his old army uniform with a rallying rendition of "The Marseillaise'' as Mattie, game as ever and sporting his cap on her head, marches playfully, and lovingly, behind her husband.

Inevitably, Syl and Laura are less sympathetic characters, inhabiting a slicker world where jealousy (in the bedroom as well as in the ever-beckoning "marketplace'') is paramount. Most of their time is spent wheeling and dealing ambitious career moves, bickering and having abortions. Cedric Pendleton and Ella Joyce are convincing in their roles but director Woodie King's decision to have them pitch so many of their lines to the back, rather than the front of the stage results in too many of them being inaudible.

If playwright Milner is somewhat predictable in his observations -- and he makes no secret of the fact that he champions the older generation -- they are pithily expressed and strike a responsive chord in the audience. The play's construction suffers from too many flashback sequences and Syl's apparently endless telephone conversations could usefully be cut.

An effective set slices the stage in half with the Coopers (naturally) playing their scenes in the kitchen, and the Williams slightly elevated and surrounded with the ubiquitous stereo, cordless phone and computer.

This is an entertaining, if not wholly satisfying play that is redeemed by superlative performances from Ruby Dee and Arthur French.

Patricia Calnan