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The story is set in Australia and centers on Jean, a journalist who is assigned to write a human interest story about the sex trade in the Philippines. Jean is assigned to the article, along with her photographer and “more-than-colleague” romantic interest, Martin, because of the award-winning piece they had previously done on a young street vagrant named Tony.

While Jean and Martin are abroad, Tony breaks into Jean’s home and is discovered by Jean’s psychosomatic sister, Laura. Both are frightened at first, but after Tony’s straightforward explaination mounted on a base of lies, Laura spends the night and sets in motion the second storyline of the play.

Simultaneously, Jean and Martin meet Australian pimp Max and the prize of his business, the teenage transsexual Toni. As the play unfolds, Toni is forced to choose between a full gender alteration in Hong Kong and the revolutionary socialist life if his brother.

Gurr sets all of these plots in motion at once, and as the play progresses characters jump between the storylines and highlight the epiphanies reached by the newly enlightened characters.

Director Ching Valdes-Aran and the Penumbra Theater Company, who stages the play, do a fantastic job with the production. A shifting focus of light makes it easy for the audience to concentrate their observation, because for a majority of the play, all actors are on stage continuing their own storylines simultaneously. The relatively modest set is free of any overly defining location characteristics, which facilitates the aura of three concurrent settings.

The acting is good, but the casting is even more effective. Phil Kilbourn, named the Best Actor of 2005 by City Pages stands a head above the rest of the cast, generating a dominant presence as Max, the quick-witted pimp. Alexis Camins’s (Toni) feminine mannerisms are alarmingly shrewd, and his small frame confuses even the audience of his gender until it is revealed by the plot.

A weak point of the production, though, is the forced Australian accent. The play’s jumping from Eastern to Western civilization through Oceana legitimizes the use of accents; however, disunity between the actors’ ability to change speech highlights the weakest point of the play: the lack of humanity in its characters.

In a work written to entertain the idea of who is exploited and who isn’t, a certain level of detachment is necessary; but more emotion is needed than what the play gives us to feel for its characters.

For example, the root of Laura’s imbalance stems from the death of her parentsčdescribed only by Jean as an afterthought. On the whole, the audience is only able to observe the changed Laura. There is only one scene and a slow, meticulous walk across the rear of the stage that gives the audience a sense of her severe mental frailty. When she stumbles upon the squatting Tony, who is confident and self-aware, her problems are swept away.

To get the full effect of exploit between Tony and Laura, a larger window is needed to observe the mental transformation of the character, both pre and post intercourse.

To a further extent, Toni, the archetype of the exploited in the play, embodies too many characteristics for the audience to get a true sense of his personality. The contradictions become confusing at points and take away from the fantastic acting. He wants to be a woman, but is devoutly Catholic; he wants to sleep with a true Filipino, but is also dedicated to primarily making money to fund a sex change.

Sexual tension also exists between Toni and the characteristically undefined Martin. Martin’s character seems to represent Western ideals, while simultaneously, Toni is seduced by her brother to Marxism. The contradictions are too quick and exreme to give the affect Gurr desires.

Gurr’s intentions are good, and the blurry line between the exploited and the exploiter makes for an interesting exploration. Sex Diary, though, simply does not go into enough depth to effectively attack the immensity of the issue. Clever dialogue and a good production are almost enough to redeem the play, but overall, there is a sense of disconnect between character and audience.

Sex Diary of an Infidel runs until March 5 at the Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul. Information, directions, and showtimes can be found at www.penumbratheatre.org, or by phone at 651-224-3180.