The script is luscious. Six roles all have main-character energy, that heady mix of virtues and foibles and desires and obstacles. As the ensemble members confront, hide from and re-encounter their demons — drugs, PTSD — dialogue fuses a searcher’s lyricism with man-on-the-street relatability.

The acting inSan Francisco Playhouse’s“Water by the Spoonful” is just as strong. Take Dorian Lockett, as his character, Chutes&Ladders, tries to absorb the verbiage of newcomer Fountainhead (Ben Euphrat) in an online chat room for crack addicts. As Fountainhead spouts a frothy, twitchy aria demonstrating his mammoth privilege — being forced to drive a mere Mustang after he damaged his Porsche in a crack-fueled bender — Lockett seems to let each fresh clause drain his soul a little bit more from his eyeballs. His head is as hollow as a jack-o’-lantern by the time he responds with a single, perfect “What. The. F—.”

Or take the camaraderie between cousins Yazmin (Lara Maria) and Elliot (Xander DeAngeles), who vibe off each other the way only family can, mixing affectionate joshing and whining with earnest, devastating reproach — all while looking ready to regress into childhood roughhousing at any moment. Yazmin, after all, is one of the few people Elliot, a Marine vet, can trust himself around, even as he conceals the Iraqi ghost (Salim Razawi) who haunts him.

But too often, director Denise Blasor fails to capitalize on these assets. In the show, which opened Wednesday, March 23, you might find yourself trying to peel, with your eyes, actors’ feet from their front-facing, stock-still positions on the floor. A whole stage and the actors’ full range of movement beckon, only to be ignored, discarded.

结果是，即使是写作精美和表演的场景仍然抖动。表演者类似于专业的空中表演者，他们不确定周围的环境是否会在他们翻转后抓住他们。When Yazmin and Elliot shop for flowers for the funeral of his aunt and adopted mother, they embark on the kind of freewheeling, far-reaching conversation that’s only possible between true intimates: about intellectual passion, about our obligations to ourselves and other people, about ethnicity and class and how they separately and together fit into the world.

但是场景仍然是如此暂定，其叙事目的以及情感上的峰值和低谷如此未形，以至于内置的乐趣崩溃了。两个人一直在说话；没发生什么事。Yazmin在以后的整个场景中如何仍然可以无意地将花朵小册子弄清楚呢？

The actors are not at fault here. When Elliot heaps heaving confession upon heaving confession, it’s not for want of DeAngeles’ authenticity that you don’t always buy him. It’s that Blasor doesn’t supply a clear emotional justification for why the play needs each successive scene, making the last quarter of the show in particular feel like a parade of redundant goodbyes.

Still, there are plenty of joys to be had from this Pulitzer Prize winner by Quiara Alegría Hudes, of“In the Heights”名望。她对成瘾的岩石底部的肖像 - 当您可能爬在地毯上，与野兽没有什么不同，寻找修复的面包屑，或者对亲人的无法言喻的态度不可言喻。她同样敏锐而富有同情心，对恢复，越过年龄，种族和阶级线的人建立了不太可能的家族纽带。

With those who’ve seen you at your worst, even if they know only your screen names in a chat room, even if they’ve never heard your speaking voice, you can both be at ease and take risks in ways that might feel unsafe with anyone else, even biological family.

A standout in these chat-room scenes is the redoubtable actor丽莎·拉米雷斯（Lisa Ramirez），whose story line straddles the play’s two main worlds, between the in-person Philadelphia life of Yazmin and Elliot and the online realm of the crack addicts. She’s the web forum’s moderator, and she brings her whole heart to that role in a way that she won’t or can’t to other areas of her life.

Ramirez can reach out and take on another character’s burdens with just her words and expression; she resets the atmosphere with just her tone and posture, the way sunlight and fresh air open a dark, stale room.

L“Water by the Spoonful”:Written by Quiara Alegría Hudes. Directed by Denise Blasor. Through April 23. Two hours, 25 minutes. $30-$100. San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., S.F. 415-677-9596.www.sfplayhouse.org