By Michael Golamco. Directed by Josette Jorge. A Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre production. At the Firehall Arts Centre on Friday, July 29. Continues until August 3

Cowboy Versus Samurai is a funny, lively production that puts a new twist on a familiar story of hidden love.

Chester and Travis are the only two Asian Americans in the tiny town of Breakneck, Wyoming, until Veronica Lee arrives to teach at the school where Travis teaches English. He is immediately smitten but doesn't have the nerve to declare his feelings for Veronica, who has told him that she's only attracted to white men. In a contemporary Cyrano de Bergerac story, Travis ends up writing a series of love letters with which Del–the school's white, dope-smoking, redneck phys-ed. teacher–successfully woos Veronica.

Los Angeles playwright Michael Golamco creates appealing characters while skewering Asian icons and stereotypes (Chester prays to Bruce Lee) along with the prejudices that perpetuate them (one local greets Travis, who is of Korean descent, with "Hey Jap, go back to China!").

Under Josette Jorge's direction, Cowboy Versus Samurai features the most consistent acting I've seen in a Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre production, with the cast bringing clarity and a buoyant energy to their eccentric characters. Minh Ly has great fun with Chester's wacky radicalism–he wants to boycott the local grocery store for not carrying tofu, and the neighbourhood bar for the lack of Asian imports in its beer selection–without tipping too far into caricature. Ryan Swanson brings a natural charm to Del's unapologetic ignorance (he uses dumb as a noun, as in, "I'm such a stupid dumb"), and Lissa Neptuno's Veronica is a little fireball with personality to spare. Only Marc Arboleda's performance as Travis feels a bit too deliberate. Granted, he's playing the straight man in a cast of oddballs, but there's room for him to loosen up.

Ben Stone and Anna Busch offer live country tunes on piano and guitar, in a handsome barroom setting in one corner of Nicole Deslauriers's otherwise minimalist set. It's a touch that adds a warm, homey texture to the world of the play. I'm not sure I'd want to spend any time in a real-life Breakneck, but this production makes it a pleasant place to pass a couple of hours.