ROOTING FOR A couple to overcome their neuroses to be together is almost impossible when one half of them is as downright grating as Allison is in Embraceable Me. Her friend and occasional boyfriend Edward isn’t exactly a prize himself, but he certainly deserves better than the manipulative user Allison reveals herself to be over the course of Victor L. Cahn’s annoying two-hander.

 

Things get off to a rocky start as we gradually realize that this he-said, she-said play is exactly that: two characters recounting their history to the audience and occasionally reenacting scenes from their past for our benefit. But listening to two characters interrupting their conversation to address the audience and reveal what they’re thinking is a cloying device that doesn’t improve as the play progresses.

The performances from Keira Naughton and Scott Barrow are both consistently impressive (even if Naughton can’t find a way to make Allison seem more palatable). But the cutesy premise— two old friends fighting their destiny for years before uniting!—prevents either of them from becoming anything more than archetypes. The problem is that Cahn hasn’t imbued either Allison or Edward with any redeeming quirks or characteristics.We’re told that Allison is an amazing writer, but the only evidence we’re given is a snippet from a college newspaper article she wrote about a cafeteria worker, the sort of condescending piece you’d imagine a well-off liberal college student would pen.

Plus there are Allison’s imperious orders for Edward to tend the pesky details of daily existence that she has deemed beneath her.The low point comes when Allison orders Edward to balance her bankbook because, as she says, “I like when you do it.” Edward claims he doesn’t care—he’s clearly a wimpy caregiver type— but that doesn’t mean we don’t care.

Director Eric Parness keeps both Naughton and Barrow on the move on Sarah B. Brown’s set, though he’s a little too fond of using the platforms that Brown gives him. But neither he nor the cast can find anything other than a thin layer of charm in this slight story of two people who end up together less because they’re meant to be than that no one else can tolerate them.

> Embrace Me

Through Nov. 14, Kirk Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St. (betw. 9th & 10th Aves.), 212-279-4200; times vary, $35.