It might be worth visiting "The Night Talkers" just to see how an imaginative actor can turn a garbage disposal into a compelling stage prop.

Frank South, acting in the world premiere of his own play presented by the Lizard Loft at ARTS at Marks Garage, wraps and cradles the disposal like a baby, turns it into a duck-hunting shotgun, and makes it the centerpiece of a grimly absurd television commercial.

His character, Unc, honestly comes by his attachment to household appliances. He's the self-proclaimed best kitchen installer in all of Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma.

The home of this homespun country boy is a double-wide trailer on a dead-end Missouri road near a muddy, marshy pond with no name. And time spent with Unc promises to be as plain and uncomplicated as worn overalls. But he has a penchant for run-on anecdotes that dress up personal tragedies with comic irony.

Still, Unc is no "Prairie Home Companion." Because sharing the space, but never interacting with him, is Connie, an emergency room nurse with a face full of cares and trouble sleeping. For the full first act, both of these apparent insomniacs spin out their stories in pieces that don't fully connect.

One thing is perfectly clear, however. Connie loathes Unc, and he regards her with the unsettled look of one who can't or won't leave the room.

It's not until Act Two that South begins to reel in his story. It seems the room belongs to Connie, and Unc visits her like an unresolved Marley's Ghost, causing her to relive recent tragedies she was unable to prevent.

Margaret Jones plays Connie Johnson, a registered nurse and improbable, self-proclaimed Hawai'i girl who was born in Seattle and only once visited relatives in Waimanalo. She finds herself learning nursing in Missouri and volunteering as a Big Sister to Unc's orphaned niece.

There's a story inside "The Night Talkers," but one feels that it belongs to Unc and not Connie — and that it will take some major reworking to bring it out.

Unc's the compelling character, the family oddball who never really fit in, went out for sports or conformed to the expected norms of Missouri manliness. His favorite pastime is watching reruns of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

How he is suspected of committing murder and the devastating aftermath of that suspicion are the strong character arc in the play. The role of Connie feels grafted onto that main theme, mainly because Unc's actions need eventually to be witnessed and not merely narrated.

Curiously, Connie intrudes on Unc's story. She may have a part in it, but as a supporting player along with many others.

In its present form, "The Night Talkers" is often funny, strongly compelling, and ultimately tragic — but lacking in a focus that could present all those qualities to their strongest potential.