Diana Son's Stop Kiss is a contemporary "issue play" about two women who are discovering — very belatedly — that they are lesbians. Or not. Perhaps they are heterosexual women, as their histories suggest, who have, to their own surprise, fallen in love with each other. Or maybe the point is that sexual preference labels don't matter. The play doesn't seem to know much about its own issues, and despite some solid performances by Heather Dyas-Fried and Julie Ann Marra, it is difficult to figure out what, if anything, the play has to say.

The plot follows a new relationship between two single women: Callie, a New Yorker who works as a traffic helicopter reporter for a radio station, and Sarah, a dedicated elementary school teacher from St. Louis, now working in the Bronx. The hard-edged New Yorker is actually quite timid, unable to confront anyone about anything and indecisive about everything except restaurants and food. The wholesome, adventurous innocent knows how to tell off a guy who is harassing them. For her courage and outrage (the man calls them names when he sees them kissing), she is beaten into a coma. When, near the end, Callie says, "Choose me," we wonder whether it is because she loves Sarah or because she desperately needs her empty life to mean something. The play's title is deliberately ambiguous, suggesting both regret and defiance at the same time.

Stop Kiss is divided into many, many scenes as it hops up and back between pre-attack and post-attack, making it much, much longer than it needs to be, since despite Carol Laratonda's efficient direction, each scene requires furniture and costume changes. The structural gimmick doesn't really distract us from the dreary dialogue and the excessive exposition, although the point of the chronological manipulation seems to be that we will be horrified as we watch the two women step unknowingly into the dangerous future that we already have seen.

Maybe this is a play about romantic love; maybe it's about sexual bigotry; maybe it's about gay-bashing; maybe it's an "I Hate NY" play, where the cops and do-gooders are almost as creepy as the creeps. Maybe. Maybe not.

STOP KISS Through Aug. 26, Simpatico Theatre Project, Playground at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-423-0254, www.simpaticotheatre.org.