The new play by Susan Soon He Stanton has an unbalanced aspect, with one foot firmly planted in domestic melodrama and the other scrabbling for a foothold in the supernatural.

"Whatever Happened To John Boy Kihano?" is a speculation on the premise of a loving father who gives away his young son to an "Auntie Maile" of whom no one is aware. It is three parts dysfunctional family and one part "Twilight Zone."

But senior John Kihano is no King Lear raging against the tide of a Hawaiian beach. Instead, he has the stunned look of a bull clubbed to the head.

The domestic part of the drama is nicely realized by director Kati Kuroda and the Kumu Kahua cast. Gathered around the familiar backyard table, speaking in broad pidgin while the women prepare food and the men guzzle bottled beer, they're a recognizable and somewhat cliche bunch. Silent father John (Brutus La Benz), directive mother (Julia Nakamoto), glib uncle (Troy Apostol) and whiny punk nephew (Christopher Takemoto-Gentile).

There is also a withdrawn, coming-of-age daughter (Amaychi Dearmore) and her prototypical haole boyfriend (Mike Dupre), an Air Force brat and self-proclaimed "perpetual new guy."

Not much is new in this family's dynamics, which consist of boasting, put-downs, goading, sulking and low-grade bullying — exemplified by a short scene in which everyone talks at once, while nothing is understood. There is a decided absence of genuine warmth, listening and compassion — despite several injunctions that they must support and stick together.

So it's not surprising that the thin glue that binds them comes quickly undone when the father relates that John-Boy has "gone home with Auntie Maile" and sinks into distraction when prodded for details.

The supernatural is hinted at by random reference. The shark is the family's 'aumakua, or family guardian. Father John uncharacteristically dips into the Old Testament to reference Abraham's sacrifice of his only son to God, but quickly adds that "God is the ocean." He exists "in the eye of the hurricane," was unexplainably saved from drowning as a child, and suggests that he has offered up John-Boy as payment in kind.

But the father remains dazed and withdrawn with only isolated moments that might make him instinctively tragic.

The most effectively disturbing image happens offstage as John the fisherman and his brother-in-law describe how fish of all kinds leap suicidally into his boat, even as he tries to throw them back into the ocean.

Director Kuroda notes that the audience must supply the missing puzzle pieces in the script. That's about as satisfying as eating dinner at a three-legged table and having to do carpentry work before getting to the entree — which has gone cold in the process.

The production is also compromised by an unnecessarily angular playing area that puts key scenes in corners that are unseen by large parts of the audience.

Mostly, "Whatever Happened To John Boy Kihano?" meanders when it could be provoking and trades in the obvious when it could open new ground.