It's the story of eight Protestant Irish soldiers during World War I, preparing to fight the Germans at the Somme River. More than 6,000 Irish troops died in the first day of that battle. Although set in 1916, these could be young men anywhere from ancient Greece onward. The dominant theme is their anticipation of the coming conflict.

These lads fight among themselves, sing hymns, self-confess, engage in horseplay, sleep, bum cigarettes and play soccer. McGuinness gives it a time-bending tone with memory overlapping onto history, muddling what was real with what is remembered, and projecting it all into a foggy twilight zone suggesting another dimension.

While we might wish for deeper character development than allowed for in Kinoshita's broad-brush, drive-forward style, the evening offers several interesting scenes and an enigmatic central character.

Kenneth Pyper is the only survivor. We meet him first in old age, railing against God and perpetually carrying both memories and guilt. Played by Craig Howse with Old Testament fervor, Pyper reaches back into memory to touch the essence of those who died — as if he drew strength from their spirit.

When Pyper appears as a young man, played by Brent Yoshikami, he is startlingly unlike his aged self. Young Pyper is brash, mischievous, taunting and iconoclastic. He is in everyone's face — teasing, provoking — with no clear purpose other than to find meaning through confrontation and the testing of his wit.

The other lads will have none of it — being stoic, colorless, blue-collar types. A lapsed minister seems to add the only variation. But as the men change from civilian clothes to military uniforms, they become more individually distinct even as they become more externally alike. They buddy up into pairs and support and test each other.

But in this process, the production feels underdeveloped. We see the separate men intellectually but don't experience them viscerally. We sense a sort of passive nobility in their willingness to die for a common cause, but we miss why they eventually galvanize Pyper, who hangs back from the larger crowd until the last possible moment.