When you look at Troy M. Apostol's "Who the Fil-Am I?" as a dramatic allegory with a strong streak of moralizing, it makes some sense. But the play, directed by the playwright at Kumu Kahua Theatre, is a mixed bag.

The story is based on journals kept by Filipino-American actors from Hawai'i who toured the Philippines to put on a play and saw their ancestors' homeland for the first time. It's a journey of discovery and a probing attempt to articulate a sense of self.

The overall problem with the evening, however, is that Apostol — as writer and director — fails to clarify his material. It's a jumble of mixed messages, driven by youthful energy that has him twisting ideas this way and that, then tossing them onto a heap that becomes the play, seemingly unconcerned whether his audience can reassemble them fast enough to make sense or keep up.

Naturalistic scenes dominate the first act, but the characters are too broad to be real and too offensive to be taken seriously. Later, when we begin to perceive the three young men we have been following to be symbolic figures and regard their story as generalized rather than particularized truth, the scenes go down easier.

But the play remains jarring, predictable and unsatisfying.

Three young Filipino-American friends from Hawai'i scrabble together the money to fly to Manila. Why they are friends in the first place is pointedly ignored.

Tomas (Cheyne Gallarde) is college-educated and well-spoken, has made the trip before to teach English to Filipino students, and is going again to present a paper at a conference.

Malcolm (M.J. Gonzalvo) seems to be out of work, has adopted black street speech and hip-hop mannerisms, and is looking for parties and cheap sex.

Roland (Reno David) is a surfer, a lover of the land, and scared stiff to be on his first plane ride.

Despite an overabundance of away-from-home bravado, they connect with no women and party over warm beer from a vending machine. They wilt in the heat, the dirt and the country's crushing poverty. Meanwhile, a four-member chorus fills in the background as beggars, bar girls and pimps. The Hawai'i boys have the shattering experience of seeing themselves reflected in the faces of the country.

As their identities deteriorate, petty arguments grow into threatening confrontations. Roland chants in Hawaiian, Malcolm raps and Tomas — challenged for being too haole — begins to doubt that he has a soul.

The chorus initiates a sub-plot in which a man tries to sell his young daughter to escape his poverty, the boys get lost in a dark cave, and a Filipino creation folk-tale explains that black, white and brown races originated from cookies baked in an erratic oven.

Slowly, we begin to notice a young woman at the edge of the chorus who is pantomiming the action of typing on a computer keyboard. She becomes more prominent and finally speaks. She is the writer of the story.

But the underlying issue in the play's title is never satisfactorily answered. "Who the Fil-Am I?" is either a work in progress with a conclusion yet to come or a purgative exercise necessary to release a creative mind to pursue other questions.