You have to admire Stuart Loeb, a Rochester psychiatrist with a passion for playwriting, and you have to want to admire "Ashcakes," his new play now in its world-premiere run at RAPA. Anna Murray Douglass, the long-suffering but stoical wife of the world-famous African-American abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass (who lived much of his adult life in Rochester), is a worthy subject for a play, but Anna's inner struggles fail to come alive in this production even though the cast is a model of conviction and determination. Their efforts are raw - a slow-paced demonstration that good intentions are necessary but insufficient, and an indication that the play needs additional work. Its use of a narrator makes explicit what should be dramatized while its reliance on indirection and ambiguity leaves what should be implied insufficiently clear. That said, it would be worth seeing again with a professional cast.

Anna raises the children and tends the house as her husband engages in great causes, spends time in Europe, and has an affair with a radical reformer from Germany who lives in his house. In this play, Frederick Douglass is a minor character of great but largely unseen influence. Loeb, who likes indirection, omits any confrontation between Frederick and Anna, nor does he provide enough insight into Anna's struggles. The deepest story lurks in the deepest shadow. In the foreground stands the less interesting character of Rosetta, the oldest Douglass daughter. It's an indirection that takes us away from what matters most until the end, when Anna teaches Rosetta to be a strong black woman in a nation about to collapse into civil war.

The play is a flashback. In May 1900, 18 years after Anna's death, Rosetta Douglass Sprague spoke publicly about her mother. The play that follows consists of her memories of Anna and of her own growing up. It is more her story than Anna's. Sprague, played with dignified emotion by Delores Jackson Radney, delivers portions of that speech throughout the play and guides the ensuing action. Radney is the production's most adept actor, yet each time she appears, ironically, the play slows because she keeps telling us what we already understand or what we're about to see. Like too many recent playwrights, Loeb chooses the easy but unconvincing device of a narrator. Within the story, Stephanie Paredes portrays Rosetta as childlike whether she is 6, 12, or 19.

The rawness of both play and performance makes it hard to tell if Loeb's writing in the more ambiguous scenes lacks the underlying clarity it needs, or if the cast is unable to convey both ambiguity and clarity. This is especially the case in scenes where figures in dreams influence reality and the play steps beyond realism in the manner of August Wilson. Either way, the play struggles to keep moving forward. Intense scenes are either noisy or unfocused; more reflective scenes languish as actors wait around to deliver lines. You can see director David Shakes' hand as he tries to coax inexperienced actors to articulate and illuminate the heartbreak and perseverance at the play's core.

Deborah Solomon as Anna understands that her performance needs to be constrained. She has chosen to remain a loyal wife, not as a victim but as a woman of conviction with a sense of duty. Solomon's performance is small rather than reflective, and she is often hard to understand except in a few moving speeches to Rosetta. Despite Solomon's inexperience, these few moments suggest what might yet be in this promising play.

Too often, the play announces crises even though it has little feel for them, from the live-in radical reformer and mistress from Germany and an escaped slave in the attic to John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry and the looming death of the youngest Douglass child, which is suggested by having the actress cough several times. Oddly, no one in the family pays much attention to her worsening illness. Reuben Josephe Tapp as the escaped slave Shields Green gives a performance that is melodramatic but also vital and impassioned. His arrival is part of Rosetta's coming of age.

Implication must never reveal everything even though it must also tell enough, but Loeb's use of it often leaves gaps. Although it's easy to figure out what's going on, what's missing too often is an enlivening sense of recognition or insight. The most notable example is Ottilia Assing (Vicki Casarett), the German visitor. Although she maintains her hold over Douglass, it's hard to believe from Loeb's writing or Casarett's uneasy performance that she possessed such seductive power, especially when the play never shows her exercising it effectively. Loeb appears less interested in her than in his other characters, and Casarett was simply miscast.

"Ashcakes"

Through December 19

RAPA East End Theatre, 727 E Main St.

$10-$12 | 325-3366, 729-8161