taperecorder For its inaugural production—its first fight (enter boxing metaphor, stage left)—LoneCollective Theatre chose Stephen Belber’s “Tape,” a script completely reliant on the acting for whatever punch it might have. And as we might expect from a rookie boxer, the new troupe comes out with plenty of energy, but with a fighting style that’s a little stiff.

The entirety of “Tape” takes place in Room 32 at a Motel 6 in Lansing, Michigan, an atmosphere that LoneCollective efficiently evokes in the ground-floor backroom of the mammoth Expo Building. Twenty-eight-year-old drug-dealer Vince (Bobby D. Lux) is visiting from California, ostensibly to lend support to high-school friend Jon (Gilbert Martinez), whose low-budget debut film is playing at the Lansing Film Festival.

But Vince has grander designs. Embittered these 10 years by Jon’s intimate relations with Vince’s ex-girlfriend, Amy (Celeste Jiminez) at the end of senior year, Vince is convinced Jon raped her and aims to tape his confession. The meat of this intermissionless play (in which Aristotle would easily recognize the unities of time, place, and action) is what results from Vince’s attempt and Amy’s subsequent arrival on the scene.

In “Tape,” Belber does not show the literary skill to win on points; rather, he seems to bet that the play will win by a knockout if the actors can put forth and exchange a sufficient wallop of intensity. Unfortunately, the aforementioned stiffness keeps the play from doing so.

Lux and Martinez each have their moments during an early peak exchange, mostly because that’s when they’re least in control. But an ensuing fight scene comes off a bit, well, staged. In fact, that’s what plagues the delivery of most of Belber’s only-quasi-credible dialog: we hear Lux and Martinez reciting their lines to each other more than we hear two people making up what they’re saying as they go along. Martinez’s best work of the night comes when he is rigid with tension as he listens with incredulity to Vince’s end of a phone call. He’s not acting then as much as he’s just being, all reaction and no recitation.

Jiminez seems a little more natural with her role, and through that prism we can see that part of the problem is the incompleteness of John Zamora’s direction. Just as a boxer’s retinue should include not only a manager but also a trainer and a cornerman, perhaps at least sometimes there needs to be more eyes and ears around during rehearsals, more mouths to make suggestions about what’s working and what’s not—something that seems lacking here.

LoneCollective’s production may be able to score a victory with these actors in place—but only if they change their fighting tactics. “Tape” is a short play as it is, but it ought to be at least 10 longer than it was in the hands of LoneCollective when I saw it (which, to be fair, was opening weekend). That extra time would be the cumulative result of the actors listening to each other speak, processing the words, and genuinely reacting. If LoneCollective loosens up—stammering, flubbing words, living in the awkward pauses of genuinely strained conversation—we might have a production that can go the distance.

Belber is not Tom Stoppard; we don’t need to hear every last word exactly as it appears on the page. (And anyway, when was the last time you engaged in a series emotionally wrought exchanges with one or two people without any of you ever talking over each other?)

LoneCollective’s mission statement speaks of “seek[ing] out independent minds that hunger for art that is unabashedly truthful.” There’s certainly room for more unabashed truthfulness in Long Beach theatre community, so LoneCollective Theatre is a welcome addition. And with experience, they might be a contender.

TAPE LONECOLLECTIVE THEATRE • THE EXPO • 4321 ATLANTIC AVE • LONG BEACH 90807 • 562.639.2659• LONECOLLECTIVEPRODUCTIONS@GMAIL.COM • THU-SAT 8PM • $15 • THROUGH JULY 30