Trudy hears voices. She's what folks used to call a "bag lady," back before the descriptor "homeless" gained traction, and we meet her at the corner of Walk and Don't Walk in New York City. She ascribes these voices to signals from "space chums," amorphous aliens who collect human experiences for further study. That's the device used by Jane Wagner, writer of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, to cycle rapidly through seemingly discrete scenes, but it's also a great way of keeping us at a cerebral, dispassionate remove.

There are moments in Search when we doubt its witty remarks and bromides are as deep as Wagner thinks they are. It doesn't matter, though, in the long run, as the goal of this one-woman play is to impress rather than teach or inspire. Wagner, as you may know, is the writing and life partner of Lily Tomlin, so she wrote this show for Tomlin to perform on Broadway. Its original 1985 run was wildly successful, launching a bestselling book edition of the script, a movie adaptation, and a 2000 stage revival that toured for a year. Lily Tomlin is, of course, Lily Tomlin, so it's fair to expect her most famous theatrical production to be funnier than it actually turns out to be. There are moments of wit, to be sure, but they're lobbed toward the targets of loftier philosophic ambitions. Wagner purports to tell us the meaning of life - or at least explain why it's OK that life has no meaning.

Harlequin's production looks basic at first, even cheap, with five polyhedral blocks on an otherwise bare stage. Then, accompanied by a dense soundtrack by Jesse McNeece and clever lighting by Amy Chisman, actor Terri Weagant descends the aisle. She rasps through Trudy's wry commentary, her spine deformed into a parenthesis, before zapping herself into over a dozen new personas. The script demands intense concentration and range from an actor. Luckily, Weagant has already toured it through Alaska - it's amusing to picture a theater full of grizzled, impatient crab fishermen - so she's primed and ready.

I found Act II, in which a multitude of characters orbit a frustrated career woman named Lyn, more engrossing than Act I. It seems more insightful and sticks its awestruck landing. I was impressed by the workload and split-second timing of stage manager Vanessa Postil, but of course the real attraction here is Weagant. Her performance pays subtle tribute to Tomlin without descending into lazy impersonation.

Would Search be as fondly remembered if Tomlin played just one of its characters? Hard to say; maybe churlish to ask. It is, after all, a rule of single-actor spectacles that we applaud mostly because we're impressed they can be managed at all.

THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE, 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Feb. 15, Harlequin Productions, 202 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia, $20-$31, 360.786.0151