Amy's View faced an uphill battle on opening night. There was one paying audience member in the Midnight Sun. The stage manager, a late replacement, couldn't make the house music work. The actors struggled with lines, even skipped several pages. One British accent was among the worst I've ever heard; another was nonexistent. Performances lacked urgency, and the program forecasted a daunting four-act drama. Yet the truth is that some of it worked rather well. I knew director Tom Sanders would face major hurdles casting his show, but China Star and Diana Martin bicker plausibly through lead roles with drawling Ab Fab accents. The costumes, by Martin and the cast, are also well-chosen to represent the passage of 16 years.

Mostly what bothered me about Amy's View was the script, by noted dramatist David Hare. I'm often told I spend too many words on the text, but that's usually by actors or their friends who wish I spent more time lauding them. Meanwhile, out in Audience World, we just want to hear a good story. And while the four acts of Amy's View require only a couple of hours, we walk away all too conscious of the superfluity of two of those acts. Even more damning, its least engaging acts are 1 and 4. Each takes 30 minutes to deliver less than five minutes' content.

If the play is a mother-daughter story, then we don't need the fourth act. If it's really about the question Hare poses - "Is theater necessary in the age of IMAX 3-D and streaming Netflix?" - then he anticipates an answer he doesn't earn. He gives Dominic (Rob Taylor) such derisive dismissals as, "If there's one thing that puts people off theater, it's those meaningless stories they tell all the time," while inadvertently validating the gibe. "Is that the appeal of theater?" Dominic asks. "This weird, arty evening?"

Well, is it? As Amy's View limps through an Act 4 devoid of its most charming character, you may find yourself wondering.

[Prodigal Sun Productions, Amy's View, $12, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through May 21, Midnight Sun Performance Space, 113 Columbia St. NW, Olympia, 360.250.2721]