Whiskey Neat

In the opening moments of Bruce Walsh's Whiskey Neat, the professional philosopher Handsome (Luigi Sottile) reminisces to nightclub manager Tommy (Nate Emmons) about a sexual conquest from his younger days.

A "whiskey memory," Handsome calls the tale, leaning back in his chair as he and Tommy sip slowly from measured pours of the title's drink. From his tone, it's hard to tell if Handsome's turn of phrase means he needs a shot before or after the story begins.

Though solidly-acted at Azuka Theatre, enjoying the remainder of Walsh's play requires drinking in advance.

The "whiskey memory" theme quickly peters out, and "Whiskey Neat" plods along without a major plot point for 60 of its 90 minutes.

Much to the envious disdain of the disgruntled, club-footed cook Terry (Keith Conallen), Tommy hires Handsome to join the dimwitted valet Tim (Brian Cowden) in parking cars on the high-tipping black-tie Saturday night event.

In between parking cars outside, the characters enter and exit a grungy and dirty back-office set, dodging a ceiling that drips, and becoming startled by the airshaft and television in which birds nest.

While Tim parks cars, Handsome shifts into power-playing interloper, psychoanalyzing, manipulating, and seducing the other employees and Tommy's misanthropic dancer girlfriend Alex (Elena Bosler).

The other workers reveal personal details, and open up to him even as he takes advantage of their situations to bend their loyalties to him.

Here, the play's second theme starts to develop, Walsh introducing the notion that in any group, hierarchies immediately form to rank the weaker and stronger members.

But rather than pursue this interesting idea fully, Walsh's characters indulge in long, meandering anecdotes. Though all written as types, the actors infuse them with depth (particularly Cowden and Conallen), and Bossler continues to show her versatility.

However, the play, which at first takes the oft-humorous service-industry milieu of a movie like "Waiting", then suddenly shifts into a violence-filled scene from "Reservoir Dogs" after Handsome crashes Alex's car into a dumpster.

Kevin Glaccum's direction hurries the play through its many entrances and exits, but can't compensate for the script's deficits and artificial tension.

Gay-baiting and cripple jokes substitute for humor, the action and acting don't set up the weird shifts in characters' intentions, and pretentiously intense moments (close-talking to ask "are you gay?") frustrate the action rather than carry it forward.

Lacking a central plot, or developed theme, even when the individual characters engage sympathy, I wondered: "what's the point?"

Even the subtler thoughts that explore the inequities of appearance in the service industry (more attractive workers earn better tips) fail to find grounding in "Whiskey Neat."

Handsome doesn't turn out to be anything he seems, but even this twist doesn't make the play any more interesting.

Finally, a pigeon nesting in the airshaft provides a moment of false enlightenment in a TV that won't completely turn off. But this metaphor amounts to nothing.

Alex finally tells Handsome "you think you're something more than you are and you see where it gets you."

She could have written those words on the script, which in the end, fails to even provide a whiskey memory I'd ever want to tell again.

Azuka Theatre presents Bruce Walsh's Whiskey Neat at the Latvian Society, 531 N. 7th St. Directed by Kevin Glaccum, runs until April 26. http://www.azukatheatre.org