Stephen F. Schmidt, Lisa Hodsoll as shock artist Lizzie B. and James T. Majewski (boy in boa as part of art installation). Photo by Stan Barouh.

Lizzy B. (Lisa Hodsoll) is an artist who doesn’t draw much of a line between art and commerce. In the opening scene of Caridad Svich’s Magnificent Waste, being given its world premiere production with Factory 449, she stalks around a rich art collector (Stephen F. Schmidt) at her latest show, flirting aggressively in between conversations about the installation in front of them and the value of art in general. Eventually, he figures out who she is. “You’re the artist,” he says, when the realization hits him.

Lizzy deadpans in reply: “I sell things.”

And make the sale she does, for a tidy $300,000. That may seem steep until you consider the subject of the piece: a real live young man (James T. Majewski), naked apart from a pink boa and briefs, sitting silently within the frame of an imagined box, atop dozens of boxes of Good ‘n’ Plenty candies. Nevermind concerns about the plausibility of this human trafficking transaction; the play takes place in a world just one absurdist step removed from our own, close enough for recognition, far enough to allow for the selling of live human art to allow Svich to make her symbolic points about consumerism gone out of control and bodily objectification.

The fallout of all this crass consumerism and prostitution of the soul is an emptiness that each of the play’s characters feels pulling at them. Lizzy and the collector, Arden, strike up a sexual relationship (even though he professes to not care much for women), and when they’re not getting their empty kicks at his place, in full view of the mute, empty stare of his new objet d’art, they head to an oxygen bar. Huffing the pure oxygen, Lizzy explains, reminds you of being a person.

Based on the way Hodsell manages to make any light or joy completely absent from her eyes in her portrayal, it’s a reminder she desperately, regularly needs. Arden treats her as little more than a curiosity and a gender-neutral sex toy, while back at home, two vulture-like hangers-on share her apartment, enabling her drug and alcohol abuse and using her to their own ends. Mindy Darling (Sarah Strasser) is a seemingly vapid former starlet in the B-movie downward spiral of her career, more famous for little apart from being famous, and the other roommate, Bret Carver (Tony Villa), hosts a celebrity talk show. Every one in the trio of them seems to enjoy verbally abusing or passive-aggressively screwing over the others for sport.

Set designer Andrea Crnkovic’s set places these actors in a dark, modernist, neon-tinged version of every bad stereotype of art-world pretention. It’s oppressive in its ersatz glitz, and that’s part of the point of director John Moletress’ entire conception for the production. A number of projectors and screens augment the unease in imaginitive ways, particularly when they use live feeds from an onstage camera to project an alternate angle of what’s being seen from the audience.

Less successful is some of the pre-recorded material, primarily Carver’s talk show, which looks like a bad cable access program instead of the high-profile product it seems they were going for. Had they done these segments live, on stage, the suspension of disbelief necessary to reimagine a portion of the stage as the talk show set wouldn’t have been a problem; but the video immediately pulls the viewer out of the imaginative space of the play, and does a disservice to the actors, who are all better when onstage than in the pre-recorded show.

Svich’s symbolism can be heavy-handed, and with as many big themes as she tries to address, the piece often struggles to be as large as its ambitions. But she often displays a real gift for language and imagery, particularly when she finally gives the young man a voice as the play winds down. His monologue does a lot to tie the disparate threads together, though the ending is far from tidy. It’s a difficult play to like, but full of promise and a sincere desire to engage and confront the audience. Which may just demonstrate that Svich is more interested in being an artist rather than someone who just sells things.

Magnificent Waste runs through May 8 at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint. Tickets are available online.