THEATER REVIEW : Abstractions Cloud Real Issues : ‘Squareone’ delves into relationships, but the results are oddly dispassionate and lacking crucial resolution.

You can hear it in Rob Rowe’s ominous ambient pre-show sound design, and you can see it in Jim Barbaley’s apocalyptic-looking set design. Even before it begins, writer-director Stephen Keep Mills’ “Squareone” at the Lionstar Theatre seems headed onto one of two roads: The road leading to dead-end pretension or the road headed for experiment, invention and discovery.

The play is clearly not another standard, kitchen-sink effort to observe the ups and downs of sexual politics. The first of its eight disparate scenes is chock-full of verbal poetic riffs by an interrogator (Mark Salamon) directed at a crouched, faceless man. Unfortunately for the man, the interrogator considers the face the most important human factor.

Unfortunately for the play, the issues in “Squareone”--male-female domination, expectations, role-playing, ego and power--remain stubbornly abstract. Many of Mills’ scenes, often depicting couples out of sync (the men all played by Mills), seem inspired by personal passions. Yet they are curiously as distant and dispassionate as a math formula and without the stylistic rigor to make them art.

In one early scene, for instance, we can see that Mills’ captain of industry character has dictated that his wife perform five different domestic roles--so she’s played by five different actors (Rhonda Reynolds, Louie Ford, Mary Margaret McCloud, Vanessa Inn and Beverly Nero). Clever idea, at first, but with no payoff.

This lack of resolution, so crucial in such short dramatic pieces, dogs “Squareone.” Only two pieces do find their way to an ending: one in which Nero and Mills play frantic parents booking every minute of their days but without time for their kids; the other featuring Reynolds as a curious amalgam of Madonna, Camille Paglia and guerrilla fighter superstar consumed by her own TV-fostered image.

Both have a shape and attitude that we can put a finger on, even though they may suffer from a certain obviousness. Most scenes -- such as the finale with Mills as a self-hating corporate man changing clothes and identities with a homeless man on a subway--resemble “Saturday Night Live” sketches written by Albert Camus on a bender. The play’s natural comedic elements never quite coalesce for the spontaneous punch of truly living theater.

These are concepts without a face, and director Mills can only get so much out of his cast. Reynolds’ tough superstar is a charismatic poseur, while Nero fills out her various female characters with touches of heartache, frustration and everyday irritation. Nero, in fact, is the most real player here--much more than actor Mills, who seems to be always acting toward us rather than within the scenes.

Although light on fully developed scenes, “Squareone” is uncommonly heavy on effects, both fair and middling. Barbaley’s multifaceted lighting scheme employs colors well and strobes terribly. K. Robert Conti’s video is strongly minimalist, as are Michael Key’s masks. The scene transitions performed by a pair of male and female clowns are initially brisk bits that eventually intrude, like a mime act long overstaying its welcome.

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Where and When

What: “Squareone.”

Location: Lionstar Theatre, 12655 Ventura Blvd., Studio City.

Hours: 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday. Ends May 13.

Price: $15.

Call: (213) 466-1767.