The heavy weight of outfit gave such ballast that he cracked on as a daring sailor should when moments counted.

More than anyone else on stage, Ms. Wehle's character actually seems to live there, and her matter-of-fact acceptance of things lurid and prosaic gives the production ballast.

This strain of mock-facetious mourning is what gives "Point to Point Navigation" true ballast and keeps the author's stray memories from drifting off in all directions.

However incendiary the action becomes, J. C. gives the series ballast and an appealing central figure.

The conflicting trends give ballast to both sides in the debate over whether the Police Department's handling of excessive force cases is so flawed that an outside monitor should be appointed to oversee it.

Mr. Turturro and his somberly beautiful wife, Katherine Borowitz, play out the section of "Illuminata" that gives it ballast and heart.

But Mr. Lieberman has clearly given ethical, even theological ballast to Mr. Gore's effort to succeed a president widely perceived as, shall we say, situationally religious.

That connection alone, unfortunately, cannot give ballast to a script that incessantly pontificates about its intentions without taking the next step of dramatizing them.

And, for the most part, the actors are unable to imbue their characters with enough emotional substance to give ballast to their strange and sketchy natures.

Alfre Woodard appears as Carolyn, the family's formidable mother, and along with Mr. Lindo she helps give the material much-needed ballast.