In the last decade or so, Dominique Morisseau has emerged as one of our most interesting playwrights, with a natural grasp of storytelling and poetic dialogue that recalls August Wilson in his prime. Her trilogy of Detroit-set plays — Detroit ’67, Paradise Blue, and Skeleton Crew — cemented her reputation for excellence while underscoring her Wilson-like ambition. Her new play, Bad Kreyòl, which opened Monday at Off Broadway’s Signature Theatre, may be her most personal one yet — the exploration of a well-educated American woman, Simone (Grey’s Anatomy alum Kelly McCreary), who returns to Haiti for the first time since she was a little girl to reconnect with members of her late father’s family as well as a culture that she feels has helped shape her in ways to which she can’t quite put a name.

Naming is important to Simone, who despite her languishing finance degree seems to have a respect for language and an acute consciousness of her American privilege but also a desire to put those privileges to work in a do-gooder sort of way. The title underscores her sense of other-ness — her desire to meet Haitians on their terms, in their Creole language. But in reality, she stumbles in her attempts to speak good Creole — and at forging a real connection with her bossy, slightly older cousin Gigi (Pascale Armand), who runs a high-end boutique and carries herself with a hauteur owing to her family’s status as a well-connected family. (Jason Sherwood’s colorful set design and Haydee Zelideth’s costumes reinforce the clan’s comfort and separation from the rest of Haitian society.)

More tellingly, Simone stumbles when trying to impose her Americanized sense of social justice on a culture that might not be so open to such critiques. First, she encourages her cousin’s longtime servant, a feisty but closeted gay man named Pita (Jude Tibeau, pitch perfect), to join a local LGBT group despite the risk of a violent beat-down by local hoodlums. Then, she advocates for a local artisan, Lovelie (Fedna Jacquet), a former prostitute who now stitches handbags, pillows, and scarves to be shipped overseas to wealthy Western women. It’s work that benefits disadvantaged young women like Lovelie while also commodifying Haiti’s economic despair. As the enterprising exporter Thomas (Andy Lucien) explains: “My customers will like that she has hardship. Supporting her is going to liberate their guilt.” But Thomas’s buddy, who helps underwrite the workshop, has also been making unwelcome sexual advances toward Lovelie — which an outraged Simone seeks to stop.

That’s a lot to unpack in a play that has just five speaking roles. And there’s a fundamental imbalance in Morisseau’s script that Tiffany Nichole Greene’s attentive direction does not go far enough to dissipate. The overlong first act meanders introducing us to the three central characters, while the second act hurries us through a whirlwind series of revelations and decisions and reversals that are frankly hard to swallow. Here’s where you wish that Morisseau had taken more time to flesh out why her characters change their minds so quickly, and so surprisingly, either in dialogue or in some additional explanatory scenes. There’s a lot left unsaid here, and a denouement that doesn’t feel entirely earned. (One unfortunate takeaway is that all that Haiti really needs is a sharp-elbowed American outsider to nudge the country’s people to make better choices.)

Still, there’s a big-heartedness to Bad Kreyòl that’s as admirable as it is occasionally frustrating. Morisseau seems to like her characters too much to make any of them villains, even accidentally so (as in the case of so many Americans abroad who manage to make conditions worse despite their good intentions). She also loves them too much to make any of them suffer, at least for very long. Who can blame her? It’s an approach that’s understandable even if it softens the play’s overall impact.

BAD KREYÒL
Signature Theatre, Off Broadway
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes (1 intermission)
Tickets on sale through Dec. 1