There are several satisfying layers beneath the title of "The Hostage Wife," the new play by Nancy Moss now at Kumu Kahua Theatre.

The obvious meaning is the least important — that the heroine is married to a contract worker taken hostage by terrorists in Iraq. America's war in that Middle Eastern nation only provides the background to the wife's personal struggle.

With her husband's capture, Dee Fernandez, housewife, becomes the focal point for individuals and groups that try to co-opt her sudden notoriety. The FBI sends an agent to capitalize on the human side of an international political incident. The press has a field day in catapulting her to the status of instant celebrity. Even a busybody neighbor seizes the opportunity to change the offending paint color of a shared property wall.

But to the woman herself, her husband's life-threatening plight triggers the realization that she has been hostage to him throughout a dominating and emotionally abusive marriage.

Skillful direction by Harry Wong III and several excellent performances among the cast exploit the script's human elements to make it work.

Jodie Yamada has the central role of an uncomplicated woman who explains her marriage with the disarming observation, "I was drinking more then," and compares it to "sitting in a hot bath and wondering when it got cold."

And there is delight in the small stuff, like the way Jason Kanda as the FBI man does a slow choke on a bite of dry mango bread and how cheap stockings sag around the ankles of Denise-Aiko Chinen as the nosey neighbor.

Despite their personal failings, all of the characters are likable in their own ways. The daughter (Nani Morita) goes through boyfriends as if they were ice cream flavors. A newspaper reporter (Tyler Tanabe) plants quotes in interviews to give his stories punch.

But while the wife's character is central to the play, it remains the least resolved. In thrall to the force of her husband's personality despite his prolonged absence, only the possibility of his death gives hope of discovering herself. As his execution deadline draws near, she gains a modicum of courage, and her physical trembling is attributable to two widely different emotions. Whether she gains enough strength is the crux of the drama and drives the play's final resolution.

Despite its topical theme, it's the human story that carries the load.

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