The play, set in dream time and real time, is about the Wickett family of Oklahoma: daddy Eddie, who slit wife Emma’s throat, though he loved her, because he " was having a bad day " ; their kids, Houston and Dallas, who watched the deed; and Eddie’s mom and dad, accomplices in what is probably a long line of domestic abuse. Son Houston winds up in a mental hospital while daughter Dallas finds respite as an adult in the arms of her lesbian lover — a simplistic solution to avoiding the fate of her mom. Despite the dark plot and some pretentious poetry mouthed by the various characters, it appears that the playwright means for us to have a good laugh at the characters’ predicaments and believe in a fairy-tale outcome.

The family savior, Cowboy Bob, serves as leitmotif, appearing to Houston in his dreams of revenge and to Eddie as he is strapped into the electric chair. The hero also comes on as Nurse Bob taking care of Houston in the hospital, Warden Bob of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, and Father Bob, an evangelical preacher down on his luck. Cowboy Bob is a fictitious character in the world of the play, a Hollywood-type symbol of the West as it never was, but Eddie and Houston take him for real as a moral guide. And the playwright demeans these two by allowing the audience to feel superior to them because they’ve been gulled.

So what is Broome driving at? Does he want us to believe that the sins of the father rain down on the children, or the opposite — that children can somehow escape the family heritage? And what about the paired images of married women — Emma and Eddie’s mom — as victims always lovin’ their man in contrast to the gay women who are grounded in reality and responsible for their lives? Since the inconsistencies abound as recklessly as the literary allusions, Texarkana Waltz is definitely nothing to carry home and ponder after the stage lights come down.

The play is embedded in an almost continuous score of songs by Broome plus incidental music composed by Andri Leonardo; it’s performed here by the actors and an appealing band of musicians led by Andriana Gnap, who plays the fiddle and shares the vocals with Rebecca Mobley. And the actors all deserve awards for their efforts to bring Broome’s comic-book characters to life. Barlow Adamson is especially impressive in making of the low-life, low-functioning Eddie a figure that’s become all too familiar — the man who does a slow secret burn at the edges of society until he bursts into violence. Sheila Stasack, as Emma, and Kippy Goldfarb, as Mrs. Wickett, deliver assured performances that give these women sparks of individuality despite their acquiescence to the treatment they’ve endured. William Church is admirable as the various Bobs, but he could do with a larger dose of chutzpah in his swaggering. Charles Linshaw elevates Houston above a joke; Kelly Lawman, as Dallas, and Kate Fitz Kelly, as her lover, Morgan, do what they can with underwritten roles.

Although the minuscule Threshold Theatre space, no doubt with a budget to match, poses a challenge, set designer Rodrigo de Mendoza might have used more imagination to suggest the fantasy element of the piece. But if you suppress the shortcomings of the material, it’s worth an evening in the theater to welcome Fennessy back to directing and see the fine cast and band in action.