The arrival of Sean Derry and Sean McConaha in downtown Cleveland is a boon to theatergoers and to the revitalization of the East Fourth Street District. Downtown theater now runs the gamut from the classic in Playhouse Square to the gutsy and gritty in Public Square. Make a note that BNC Cleveland performs every night of the week except Tuesday. For those of us who remember when you couldn't even get a drink downtown after dark - unless you were carrying your own in a paper bag - this is good news indeed.

But let's talk about the play. The New Yorker credits playwright Neil LaBute with probing "the fascinating dark side of individualism." But his view of mankind as inherently bad is not much different than that of the Mother Superior, who is the subject of so many late-night parodies. Sometimes he scores by virtue of his wit and his capacity for surprising or at least manipulating an audience. But as a general rule his male characters are immature and self-serving and his female characters are dupes. And this is certainly how it goes in BNC's first Cleveland offering.

It begins with a monologue in which Doug Kusak as "Man" sets the stage for a chance meeting with his old high school crush Belinda, played by Leighann Niles DeLorenzo. She's married to Cody, played by Michael May, another former classmate, who is now a successful black businessman. So is this a play about race? The narrator and Belinda are both white. Well, maybe. Race is at least one of the tricks that LaBute has up his sleeve.

You see, the events unfolding on stage are only scenes in a play that Man is writing. He warns us that he may not be the most reliable narrator, and he stops scenes frequently to suggest that there might be another point of view - and to sometimes show us that point of view. So is this a play about the unreliability of the narrator, a new Rashomon in which race colors our view of reality? Given the sexual tensions simmering under the surface, this could be powerful, particularly if the characters believe the prejudices under which they act and judge others are "true" - that is, if they are the victims of their own prejudice.

But no, this is a play in which we see the playwright pick up and play with certain themes and then discard them until finally the play becomes only about his own technique. Director Fred Sternfeld does a yeoman's job of clarifying the plot but nothing can illuminate this dense, elaborate construct. This play teeters on a great abyss of nothingness because that is the only depth LaBute can fathom, and sleight of hand or mind is the only diversion he offers to keep the dark away.

Doug Kusak is an entertaining if not entirely credible "Man"; Leighann Niles DeLorenzo does her best with the non-character LaBute has given her. Michael May is consistently and powerfully believable, even as he shifts his ground with every turn of the plot.

This Is How It Goes: Through May 10 at The Bang and the Clatter Sometimes in the Silence Theater Company, 224 Euclid Ave., 330.606.5317.