Was that Edward Albee shifting uncomfortably in his chair Friday night? Playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb grabs Albee's motifs with both fists and smashes them up in "Hunter Gatherers," which opened at Red Eye Theater.

Nachtrieb uses a chain saw to hack his way through the thicket of politesse that modern folks practice, with hopes he will reveal something about our essential carnality. Or perhaps he's just spoofing "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" with a sideways glance at "The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?" Where Albee treated his characters brutally, he at least left them standing and damaged at play's end. Nachtrieb isn't quite so kind in this full-throated howl into the wilderness.

"Hunter Gatherers" should be played as a relentless farce, even though Nachtrieb never completely commits to that convention. Consequently, Red Eye's production, directed by Steve Busa, seems always back on its heels -- even when fists are thumping and bodies are humping.

As the lights come up, Richard (Dan Hopman) sits next to a cardboard box that holds a bleating lamb. He asks his timid wife, Pam (Jen Scott), to hold the precious symbol of innocence while he slaughters it. This is his art -- creating a splendidly fresh gourmet dinner for an annual anniversary party. Richard and Pam were married at the same time as Tom (Kevin McLaughlin) and Wendy (Bethany Ford). They will all feast on this roasted, succulent ruminant.

That's the plan. It goes awry, of course. As Tom and Wendy unspool their complaints with each other, Richard and Pam reveal their disparate stripes. Wendy is in heat, dissatisfied with her husband ("the closest he comes to an orgasm is an apology"), and would love to have Richard's baby.

Richard, a thumping phallus bent on sowing his seed where and whenever it suits him, pins Tom to the ground in their annual wrestling match. Tom takes the abuse and comes back for more. He knows he's being cuckolded by Richard and Wendy but does nothing about it. And poor Pam bears the countenance of someone with an eternal case of gas.

This is not a great play by any stretch, caught between the universes of realism and absurdity. Busa's production seems hamstrung by that realization and the staging feels leaden. The simulated sex scenes have little fire -- granted, a tough thing to pull off in an intimate space -- and not one of these characters commands our emotions.

Richard could be a deliciously fascinating study in animal lust, but Hopman gets him only to scatological bullyhood. Similarly, Ford never slips completely or comfortably into the steamy skin of Wendy. McLaughlin has little to work with as Tom, the human pincushion, and Scott has the only sympathetic turn as Pam. But Nachtrieb gives her no agency until the very end, by which point it is difficult to maintain interest.