What do you make of a production in which the actors are superb and the direction exquisite, but the characters are the most abominable people you've ever had to spend two hours with? Except for the fact that drunk, poor, belligerent misogynists offer performers a therapeutic chance to scream, moan, grovel and fight, it's hard to fathom why the talented adapter-directors Leo Farley and Jonathan Powers chose to mount these nine stories by Charles Bukowski.

Bukowski, who lived in Los Angeles and published more than 45 books before his death in 1994, was, if this play is any indication, a consummate asshole. Known to some as Bullshitski and to others as the Dirty Old Man of American Literature, he was a contemporary of the Beat writers but objected to being associated with them. In this production, we have the displeasure of getting to know the writer, skillfully played by Stephen Payne. The vulgar, gravelly voiced, greasy-haired raconteur tells us he likes downtrodden women and desperate men - "ones with broken teeth and broken minds" - then goes on to narrate his unlinked stories, which focus on just such unappealing people.

Seamlessly and imaginatively directed, the protean cast portrays both the people who inspired Bukowski and their fictional counterparts. Bukowski spends much of the play at his desk, mostly just typing, but occasionally jumping in and becoming one of his characters. At one point, after a wrestler (Gordon Holmes) has his balls kicked by his angry girlfriend (Moira MacDonald) - one of the scarce exhibitions of female retaliation - he turns to his creator, the typing Bukowski, and asks, "Why did you do that? You almost killed me!" This sort of interaction, which risks becoming too self-consciously conceptual, actually comes off here without a hitch.

However, by the second act, with no redemption in sight, the unwavering awfulness of these people and their sick fantasies becomes grating. One man brings home a store mannequin and, after slapping her, screaming at her, kissing her, fucking her and taping some of her synthetic head hair onto her crotch, falls in love with her because she'll have sex on demand and never needs to be taken to dinner. In abother story, the devil screws a man's wife, but soon "drops her like a pair of stained panties." Another character compliments his girlfriend, and then burns her with a cigarette.

The evening's lesson is that men are doomed to loneliness because of their insurmountable hatred of women, and women are alone because all men hate them. This theme is so monotonous and insidious that it ultimately detracts from the actors' admirable performances. But if you, like the directors, believe that inebriated, cruel people are a commanding means of exploring the human condition, then you have a treat in store for you.