Pacific Lutheran University's production of the bizarre Irish play The Cripple of Inishmaan begins with promise. From line one, Clare Edgerton and Anne Olsen are thoroughly amusing as a pair of tut-tutting shop owners, Eileen and Kate. Travis Tingvall is instantly irksome as the local crier of consistently boring news Johnnypateenmike O'Dougal - yes that is the name in the program. Jordan Beck makes the thickheaded, sweets-loving Bartley McCormick oddly, if dimly, endearing. And Joseph Baken shows remarkable dedication to Billy Claven, a role that requires him to shuffle uncomfortably about the stage for most of two hours as the title character.

So, with so much praise to spread around among members of the cast, I should not have walked out of Eastvold Auditorium feeling nothing but annoyance over the waste of my last two and a half hours on a Saturday night.

Every single character in The Cripple of Inishmaan is on some level horrible to at least one other character. And not one of them exhibits any genuine remorse over their behavior. They do mean things, talk behind each other's backs, and administer pummelings left and right - and not in the name of entertainment or drama.

Brian Desmond's director's notes tell the reader that playwright Martin McDonagh "blends pathos and humor in surprising and unsettling ways, while creating characters that are memorable precisely because they are both larger than life and deeply human."

This is basically true, but I suspect Desmond meant it in a more positive light than what was ultimately delivered at PLU. Scenes jump helter skelter through the dichotomy of silly banter to insults and beatings with a rapidity that leaves the viewer wondering if they are meant to laugh at the cruelty, stoically ignore the jokes - or some bizarre combination of the two.

This struggle between styles is mirrored in the play's inability to end, as it struggles through a myriad of reasonable finales, waffling from moderately happy to crushingly depressing and back until this baffled reviewer was left settling for whatever end brought the final blackout, simply so there would be no more.

The result is a moderately effective short piece, with a second act that feels shoddily tacked on to satisfy the writer's need for a twist ending - only to be trapped in a frustrating spiral as he fails to stop twisting for the next half hour.

The last time I gave positive actor reviews blemished by unenjoyable writing, I was informed later that I simply did not understand the theater. I don't buy it. Some shows simply cannot be sold by any quality of thespian. Some shows are bland and muddled and struggle to manufacture meaning simply by being different.

There are plenty of worthwhile performances by clearly talented actors on display in Inishmaan, but the play itself spends so much time struggling to be both lightheartedly entertaining and darkly emotional that it fails to achieve anything beyond an ironic twist on Johnnypateenmike's lifelong bane: a futile attempt to be liked and un-boring.

[Eastvold Auditorium, March 19-20 7:30 p.m., $5-$8, Pacific Lutheran University, 12180 Park Ave. S., Tacoma, 253.535.7325]