A new beginning is filled with ‘Hope’

There is, at first, plenty to ooh and aah over. The 402-seat theater in the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center is its own romantic drama: gritty, muscular concrete giving itself over to warm, seductively burnished wood.

Then the show begins, and it quickly becomes clear that the first big, professional production at the city-run facility isn’t generating nearly as much excitement as the room itself.

Written by and starring former “Law & Order” actor Richard Brooks, “Hope Runs Eternal” is a morality play/music industry drama/underworld thriller/R&B; musical that resembles the many message plays and gospel musicals written for today’s African American audiences yet also seems intent on pushing that genre in new directions. Ambitious as the show is, however, it is jarringly plotted, clumsily staged, indifferently performed and, well, just a mess.

Brooks portrays a thirtysomething singer-songwriter who isn’t drawing crowds like he used to and is growing too old to land a contract in the youth-obsessed recording industry. The song that introduces Raymond, one of five original pieces in the show, is a convincing facsimile of a smooth-groove R&B; song, but the pantomime of the two onstage band members rarely matches what’s on the backing track (especially the bassist, who is often observed playing when there’s no discernible fretwork in the track). John Paul Luckenbach’s set design also causes a problem by putting onstage a detailed bar and several tables, which sit empty, even though sound effects give the impression of a bustling atmosphere.

Raymond’s live-in fiancee, Elaine (Cynda Williams of “Mo’ Better Blues”), has unshakable faith in him, despite his difficulties. But when her recording star of a sister, Hope (Victoria Platt Tilford), pays a visit, the story turns abruptly into “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Left alone, sexual intensity flares up between Raymond and Hope, heading them toward you know where until Elaine unexpectedly returns home.

The plot takes yet another stylistic turn -- into the realm of the TV crime drama -- when Hope learns her manager has died under mysterious circumstances and finds that she has been sold, essentially, to some bad guys. She needs money, fast, so that she can go on the lam. Raymond arranges an advance from the owner (Roger E. Mosley of “Magnum, P.I.”) of the club where he regularly plays, predicated on Hope joining him for a performance (this even though Hope is supposed to be lying low).

For all the tension indicated in the script, director Donald Douglass and his TV/film actors generate remarkably little of it on stage. Worse, though, is the message conveyed. Raymond’s effort to raise money for Hope is really a plan to piggyback onto her fame, and the big duet devised for their performance is a smoky ode to their secret attraction. Even if he’s meant to teach by negative example, he’s a particularly doggy dog.

And so, alas, is this play.

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‘Hope Runs Eternal’

Where: Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, 4718 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays

Ends: April 9

Price: $25 to $50

Contact: (310) 773-8373 or www.nhpac.com

Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes