While it has a playful premise, Bryan Hiroshi Wake's "Ala Wai" demonstrates the difficulty of building a two-act play around a single joke.

The farcical setup is that a young man, who is stung on his private parts by a Portuguese Man of War, develops superpowers that give his urine miraculous cleansing properties. Conflict between commercial exploitation and altruistic common good develops in Act 2, but the show basically depends on shi-shi jokes.

Sadly, that's not enough. The original idea plays itself out early, leaving director BullDog and his cast a large amount of script to deal with. Program notes say that much of the play's final form was developed during rehearsals — by people raised on "Sesame Street" and "Kikaida," it seems.

Most of "Ala Wai" plays like an overdeveloped skit that might delight an in-crowd but fails to attract a general audience. But there are bright spots.

Bert and Ernie (Ron Encarnacion and Daryl Bonilla) are homeless odd-couple roommates. There is encouraging initial byplay between Bert the hypochondriac and the pot-smoking braggart Ernie, with great throw-away lines from Bonilla that play like ad-libs.

Denise Aiko Chinen adds visual punch as a suicidal Japanese-speaking tourist who has been stood up at the altar. There is also promise in the characters played by J. Kamamo Bailon (a complaining neighbor) and Eddy Gudoy (a bumbling policeman).

But, once established, the characters have nowhere to go and spend the play repeating themselves and contesting the purpose of Bert's urine.

The production's strongest presence is the polluted Ala Wai Canal that borders Waikiki and represents the wider contamination of the Hawaiian spirit. Once, families swam in its waters. Now, it is dirty, filled with garbage and cockroachlike tilapia fish. The promise that it could once again be purified shines like a beacon of hope.

Set designer Bart McGeehon does an excellent job of creating an architectural model in the tiny theater. In a proscenium configuration, he creates a narrow strip of grass for the main playing area. It also represents one of the plays best laugh lines: "What's your location?" barks a voice over the police radio.

"Between the Ala Wai Canal and Ala Wai Boulevard," is the reply. There's not enough of that kind of dialogue in the play. Shi-shi jokes simply fail to carry the day.