Promising a touching love story following a one-nightstand encounter in Amsterdam, Clarence Coo’s “On That Day in Amsterdam” (currently on at 59E59 Theaters) delivers instead a convoluted story of risk, disenfranchisement, immigration policy, art history, and duplicity that has little to do with the narrative’s main characters. This is unfortunate given the actors are outstanding, the direction first-rate, and the members of the creative team go above and beyond bringing Mr. Coo’s words to the stage.

The play’s themes mentioned above are important ones; however thematic threads without believable characters with authentic conflicts/problems cannot sustain a forward-moving plot. After meeting at “the club full of young men” and spending the night on a houseboat, Kevin (a brooding and somewhat broken Glenn Morizio) a twenty-something Filipino American and Sammy (a conflicted, emotional, and deeply needy Ahmad Maksoud) a twenty-something Syrian wander through the streets and along the canals of Amsterdam, hoping to avoid tourist sights but visiting all of them.

It is tempting to see “On That Day in Amsterdam” as a glimpse into a romantic relationship. In fact, the members of the audience on the night of this performance were aching for romance, leaning forward in their seats hoping for an authentic connection between Kevin and Sammy. What is delivered at length is a narrative that meanders through history given by three historical figures (each a trope apparently) much like the canals meander through Amsterdam.

Is Coo’s play about immigration? Is his play about the dangers of returning to Syria inside a truck inside a crate? Perhaps it’s about Kevin’s duplicity and his unwillingness to commit? Despite Zi Alikhan’s careful direction, the appropriate scenic design by Jason Sherwood, the sound design by Fan Zhang, and the stunning projection design by Nick Hussong, the interesting pastiche of images with neither dimension nor depth and the flat projections on the front scrim and on the back wall of the set surround mostly flat characters with poorly defined conflicts.

Although the narrators/Greek Chorus deftly supply much needed exposition, Kevin and Sammy remain poorly defined throughout the narrative. The audience learns little about either character’s pasts, the current conflicts arising from their history, their motivations for their previous and future travels, and their hopes or dreams. Rembrandt (Brandon Mendez Homer/the Romantic One), Anne (Elizabeth Ramos/the Empathetic One), and Vincent Jonathan Raviv/the Perfectionist One) narrate Amsterdam’s past; however, their storytelling inadequately counterpoints neither Kevin’s angst nor Sammy’s well-founded fear of returning to Syria.

One wishes that Clarence Coo, a gifted writer, had crafted an engaging romantic story that transcended time and space yet honored the passion of the play’s immigrants. Just as Kevin’s writing about Sammy fails to materialize, so that day in Amsterdam – their day in Amsterdam – fails to fully honor their important journey.