Neurotic New Yorkers are nothing new on theatre stages. Neil Simon and others have made whole careers writing plays about them.

Playwright Nicky Silver is on that bandwagon as well with The Food Chain, a sitcom-level piece suffering from repetitive-dialogue syndrome now playing on the Cassius Carter Centre Stage, and directed by Matt August.

This play appears to be about human connection and the lack thereof. Anorexic motormouth Amanda Dolor (Christa Scott-Reed), married three weeks to the taciturn Ford (Rod Brogan), is wondering what happened to hers. She calls a crisis hotline to boo-hoo that Ford left her two weeks ago to work on a screenplay and she hasn’t seen him since, launching into a lengthy, meandering kvetch that makes clear one reason he may be in no hurry to return.

Amanda, beneficiary of her mother’s money, has the luxury of calling herself a poet – she is, in fact, published, with works such as “Untitled 64” to her credit. “I’m vomiting images like spoiled sushi,” she says, and seems to think this is good news.

On the other end of the phone is Bea (Marilyn Sokol), stealing the show with a hilarious if stereotypical smart-alecky Jewish mother approach to crisis counseling that will give any real counselors in the audience the heebie-jeebies.

If the women here are neurotic, the men are downright weird. The second scene subjects us to a confrontation between gorgeous underwear model Serge (Paolo Andino) and beached whale Otto (Michael Lluberes), who fancies himself Serge’s rejected lover (a designation Serge loudly disputes). Otto, in contention for the most revolting stage character of all time, is never without a bag of doughnuts or chips or some other greasy wonder which he never stops eating, talking all the while and spraying food all over the stage.

Are you laughing yet? Some in the audience did – for a while, at least. But others like me agreed with the patron who opined that this scene is “the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in 60 years of theatregoing.”

Considerable acting talent tries desperately to bring this disaster to the level of tolerability. Sokol is spectacular, and Lluberes actually achieves the near-impossible task of making you care about him. I’d like to see what he (and the others) could do if they didn’t have the lead weight of that script to push uphill the whole time.

Scott-Reed is convincing (though Amanda is annoying), and the same can be said for Andino. Brogan suffers from a role that allows him maybe five words and leaves the audience wondering why anyone cares where he is.

Silver writes that The Food Chain is about obsession. To be sure, most of these characters seem obsessed with the sound of their own voices. It’s a pity they don’t have anything of interest to say.

The Food Chain runs through May 30 at the Old Globe Theatre’s Cassius Carter Centre Stage. Performances are Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7:00 p.m.; and Thursday- Saturday at 8:00 p.m., with matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Call (619) 239-2255 for tickets.