It had to happen — a play inspired by a Web site.

"Share a Secret," now in the late-night slot at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa's Earle Ernst Lab Theatre, is the collaborative result of director Jessica Nakamura and her cast (Miche Craig, Michael McDermott and Maryann Peterson.) With moody introspection, it explores the subject of holding and sharing secrets, substantially supported by Chris Bradley's subliminal accompaniment on guitar and percussion.

The production was inspired by postsecret.blogspot.com, billed as an ongoing community art project where people are invited to mail in their secrets by words and images on one side of a homemade postcard. Secrets can express hope, regret, fantasy or confession, with the only stipulation being that they must be true and never previously expressed.

Nakamura takes up the dramatic theme from the human need to reach out and bond with others, creating "invisible communities held together by common secrets."

Most interesting is the fact that the secrets themselves are never revealed but are passed on anonymously or by whispers through cupped hands. The work is true to the aim of the Late Night Theatre to present challenging topics in non-conventional style.

The result is 35 minutes of sometimes self-indulgent, circular expression on a theme — leaving the audience to puzzle out the sense of the work. At the risk of ignoring Mark Twain's preface to "Huckleberry Finn" that "persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot," it is possible to find the vestigial imprint of a storyline beneath "Share a Secret."

A central character is identified as the community "Secret Keeper," entrusted with everyone's secrets until she gives up that burden in a giddy bid to be free. Whether and why she might take back the responsibility becomes the connecting thread.

As the issue works itself out, the action makes various points.

Carrying a secret is a burden, but releasing it comes with additional fears. Will the releaser be recognized? Will she be believed or laughed at? Will the discovery that the secret is not unique minimize it or bring new confidence?

Sharing a secret with others can forge strong bonds, but superficial sharing is childish game-playing. Will the secret harm others or destroy relationships?

Those possibilities draw strong dramatic support from movement and banal comments. The weight of a secret is emphasized when an actor clings to the back of a secret-keeper, causing him to trudge under its additional weight. Actors swirl like windblown leaves through patterned dance movements that emphasize their inability to connect. A child's game of patty-cake highlights the veneer of superficial sharing.

The booming voice of a boyfriend behind a locked door, "Open up! I know you're in there," takes on additional meaning. "We've got to talk," emphasizes its organic futility.

"Share a Secret" is short and seemingly inconclusive and unfinished. But it is also provocatively moody in creating human feeling in the abstract — devoid of the messiness of real characters.