‘A Body of Water’ that isn’t too clear

A man pads into the room in a bathrobe and slippers, morning coffee in hand. He’s the very picture of cozy domesticity, except for the quizzical expression on his face. He’s looking about as though taking in his surroundings for the first time. A woman joins him, similarly attired, with her own coffee. She regards him pleasantly but seems to be watching him for clues.

The exchanges that follow include phrases such as “I think I remember ... “ or “It could be ....” Turns out, these two people don’t know where they are or how they got there. They don’t recognize each other. They don’t even know who they themselves are. So they study their environment and each other, trying to assemble identities.

This unsettling scenario is spun by Lee Blessing in “A Body of Water,” receiving its West Coast premiere at the Old Globe. The piece seems surprisingly Beckett-like or Pirandellian for an author best known for such sociopolitical dramas as “A Walk in the Woods” and “Two Rooms.” Then again, Blessing has long defied easy categorization, trying his hand as well at family drama (“Eleemosynary”), sports (“Cobb”), literary farce (“Fortinbras”) and more.

His current experiment certainly gets the audience talking at intermission and afterward. The characters’ reality keeps changing, until we don’t know what to believe anymore.

But is there any purpose to it all? Or is Blessing merely showing how clever he can be? He raises issues only to turn around and drop them, and though he hints at broader issues of human existence, he wrapped so many convolutions around Sunday’s matinee audience that people walked out the door trying to unknot the plot, rather than contemplating broader existential or psychological implications.

Many, though, seemed pleased. And why shouldn’t they? Sandy Duncan and Ned Schmidtke offer engaging, compassionate performances, under Ethan McSweeny’s carefully calibrated direction.

The man and woman are meant to be in a house high on a hill, looking down at a body of water. To maximize that effect in the in-the-round configuration of the Old Globe’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage, set designer Michael Vaughn Sims suspends a minimalist square platform, sleekly black, above a pool of water. Music by Michael Roth and lighting by York Kennedy set moods both sinister and serene.

At first, the man and woman engage in some amusing gambits to try to jog their memories, with the man going so far as to suggest that they open their robes, to see whether they recognize each other’s bodies. The woman, not sure how familiar she should be, returns from the kitchen with a pair of tongs with which to conduct her inspection.

Then a door slams. A young woman (Samantha Soule), perhaps in her 20s, enters. Is she their daughter? Their caregiver? She eyes them warily, and when they don’t recognize her, she turns testy, frustrated, exhausted. At their urging, she begins to fill in the blanks. But the facts keep changing.

The play could be interpreted as a study of dementia, Alzheimer’s or trauma-induced memory loss. It also raises questions about what is true and whom to believe. What’s more, there is talk of connections, of memory as a shared construct. And there are hints that identity -- indeed, that reality itself -- is based on perception.

Intriguing stuff, insofar as it goes. If nothing else, we can take away this much: Each day is a new beginning. With it, we can choose to remake ourselves, or let others shape us. The choice is ours.

Or is it ... ?

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‘A Body of Water’

Where: The Old Globe, Balboa Park, Laurel Street entrance, San Diego

When: 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays

Ends: March 19

Price: $37 to $56

Contact: (619) 234-5623 or www.TheOldGlobe.org

Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes