Buried somewhere in the depths of Thirty Ghosts, getting its world premiere at Ensemble Theatre, playwright Robert Lewis Vaughan has some observations worth pursuing about what haunts us.

But Vaughan hasn't become a better playwright since his Praying for Rain premiered at Ensemble in 2002. This is a playwright who continues to be all over the place without going anywhere.

Anne (Peggy Cosgrave) has - oopsy - bought a haunted house. Designer Brian Mehring has made it look exactly like the setting of a Stephen King novel - updated rustic with high-end furniture that tells you a yuppie has had the wrong-headed idea of moving to the dead end of a dark and deserted lane.

Cosgrave, who's brought her high energy and charm to Women Who Steal and The Women of Lockerbie for ETC, is terrific as always.

This time, she's a tough cookie magazine writer who's so undone when a story leads to the murder of rising young baseball player Luke (Joshua Neth) that she retires to the country - and her guilt forces his ghost to come along.

Vaughan's intriguing thought is that there's not enough of the ghost to go around, so his mourning wife (a. Beth Harris) is left with nothing of his spirit.

Over the last few seasons, Harris has developed into a stage force to be reckoned with, and Neth, on loan from Cincinnati Shakespeare, demonstrates just how good that company is. With Cosgrave, they carry this script on their backs.

But Ghosts is flabby and tedious. Doors slam spookily, there are some very cool video effects, and Vincent Olivieri delivers whoo-whoo sound design, but Vaughan is so busy packing on ideas that he forgets to create compelling characters. Who are these people? Why should we care?

Vaughan and director Lynn Meyers would have a better play if they'd streamlined it to a few good, deeply considered ideas instead of piling plot precariously upon plot.

You've never seen so many living and dead people with so many motives, most of them not amounting to enough.

As enlivened as the play is by three strong performances, it's deadened by three bad ones, and everybody gets stuck with some wince-worthy dialogue.

Shelley Little is a listless Patricia, the ghost of a young woman murdered in the '20s who's convinced that Anne is the one who will set her free of the house (Why?) and that something unspeakable but unknown has been hiding there for the 80 years she's been hanging around. You know she means it because she keeps saying it.

Steven Bishop is nondescript as the local guy who provides a much needed escape hatch for Vaughan, and poor Jim Nelson gets stuck with the role of playing Patricia's wacko pop, the b-a-a-a-d ghost haunting for all he's worth.

Thirty Ghosts continues through Oct. 31 at Ensemble Theatre. Tickets: (513) 421-3555.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com