Imagine an outpost in Iraq so desolate that American soldiers pretend to be attacked to counter its crushing boredom. Juxtapose that with two low-paid clerks intent on suicide to protest the business practices of their exploitive employer.

Can both situations arise from a culture corrupted by its own inaction?

The Cruel Theatre's final Hawai'i production, "Haditha Walmartt Killing Machine," explores that hypothesis in an 11 p.m. time slot at Kumu Kahua Theatre this weekend.

Directed by Taurie Kinoshita (who is moving to New York City in May) and without a playwright credit, the story unfolds on a split stage — left is the barren Iraqi village; right is the manager's office of a big-box discount retailer. But we hear the same lines — mostly obscenities, some poetry and enough character hopes and fears to convince us that variations of the same human drama are occurring in both locales.

In Iraq, an American soldier (Ryan Sueoka) brutalizes a pair of villagers (Marissa Robello and William Murray) while his subordinate (Nicolas Logue) bears incredulous witness. In America, the suicidal store workers (Hester Kamin and Frank Katasse) are interviewed by a self-serving journalist (Reb Beau Allen).

Director Kinoshita quotes Socrates in her program notes, "the unexamined life is not worth living," and then ups the philosophical ante with Kierkegaard, "evil stems from the inability to perceive the impact of your actions ... or non-action."

A character in the play paraphrases, "it used to be so easy to be good. Now we have to work at it."

As guns are pulled and bodies hit the floor, bitter accusations fly along with the bullets. The store clerks believe the journalist cares more about his story than about their lives. The Iraqi woman snaps that the soldier who prevents her rape has no entitlement to her gratitude.

Much of the play's action and dialogue rings with the simplistic passion of young creative energy. For every "Put me out of my misery!" there is an equally strong "It's none of my business!" The poetic meditations of John Donne, "no man is an island," uneasily share the stage with rage against pesticide poisoning.

But despite the pat, uninspired indictment against an employer who would deny health benefits to lower prices by 20 cents, there is the occasional stunning image — such as the store pianist found mummified inside the mechanical piano that replaced him.

While the play's philosophy is expressed in strident tones and redundant dialogue and the character motivation is often forced and jumbled, the play's staging is powerful and gutsy.

Alternating parallel scenes provides initial interest. Mimicking dialogue across widely dissimilar contexts is provoking. But when characters begin to cross over into each other's scenes, the audience can't help but be jerked up into keen attention.

When a rifle-toting soldier moves from an Iraqi village to a business office, he shatters stage conventions and invisible boundaries in a single step. Suddenly, we are in a new reality where anything is possible and grim reality begins to mix with examined absurdity.

Unfortunately, the production pulls back from that dramatic precipice to end on a more conventional note, but for one brief, unbalanced, theatrical moment we witness mankind's interconnection despite its seeming isolation.