Honolulu playwright Nancy Moss seems to have found a niche in writing about the Iraq war — not about the deployed military and contractors, however, but about the families they leave behind.

Her "Hostage Wife" at Kumu Kahua Theatre earlier this year centered on the wife of a contractor who comes to realize how her absent husband continues to control her life. In Moss' new play at The Actors Group, "Ring of Fire," families are in limbo as an investigation looks into the killing of a group of Iraqi civilians.

Both are domestic melodramas set against the backdrop of war. The earlier play was inconclusive and did not resolve the wife's future. The current one tidies things up in the final scene, but does not absolve the wife's behavior. It also puts a face and an unraveling psyche on the character of the husband.

The central dilemma is whether Gina Corelli (Amanda Palacios) will convince her husband (Cyrus Legg) to alter his testimony in order to remove charges against other members of his squad. Can she get him to lie that the civilians provoked the attack?

While that question hangs in the balance, Gina tires under pressure from other wives and her husband's increasing despondency. She compensates by falling into an affair with her kung-fu instructor (Chad Williams.)

Directed by Brad Powell, characters develop slowly and along predictable paths. Ultimately, we come to know more about them, but there are no real surprises. Moss' maneuvering them into final position is so subtle that it essentially passes unnoticed.

The script offers a quadruple phone conversation and a pair of simultaneous monologues. It also provides some basic acting opportunities, but makes the wife the central figure without fully developing her tragic sensibilities. Consequently, Palacios seems to be playing the wife from a distance, as if Gina moves through her life without fully connecting with it. Ultimately, her final tears are real enough, but we can't feel pity for her failure to see them coming and doubt her ability to fully understand her accountability in producing them.

Legg, as the soldier husband, is essentially confined to a quarter of the playing area and allowed to interact only with his wife. His sinking into a private hell is revealed in the nightmares he writes into a journal, but which his wife lacks the capacity to understand. His tragedy is real but plays only a supporting role.

Jenn Harris delivers the most fully developed character as an enlisted man's wife with private dreams of "making things pretty" and saving up for a fantasy vacation to Paris. Su Yates plays a boozy secretary with an inclination to well-poisoning, and Williams plays a martial arts instructor with a sensitive streak.

Director Powell divides the stage into four playing areas of varying levels, avoiding the problems of delayed scene changes, but fails to enforce their invisible walls. When a character in one scene breaks the boundary into another, the illusion is lost.

And, yes, the title reference to the Johnny Cash song is intended, as characters hum, whistle, and sing snatches of the melody.

"I went down, down, down and the flames went higher."

Clearly, that lyric has both military and domestic application.

Joseph T. Rozmiarek has reviewed theater performances in Hawai'i since 1973.