First of all, forget the movie. Its connection to the play is about as close as Hamlet is to an omelette.

Just go see this production. The performance I saw became one of those rare moments when all the elements merge to produce a total theatrical experience. The playwriting is powerful and flawless. Well, almost. There are one or two points so minor they don't even bear mentioning, but, hey -- I'm a playwright, so I have to find something. This is nonlinear drama at work doing what it does best: rapidly shifting multiple locations, simultaneous dialogue, characters interjecting words into scenes they are not part of -- all absolutely clear under Dave Barton’s firm and transparent direction and the completely nuanced and consistent portrayals by the ensemble cast. 

As if that's not enough, there is not a gratuitous moment of sex, violence or nudity -- and there is a lot of it -- in the piece. It all contributes, it all adds up. Parallel love stories merge with a murder mystery into a grim and brutally uncompromising look at what fear, particularly fear of intimacy, leads people to do to one another and to themselves.

The set, also by Barton, sound and light design by Shaun O’Neal and Don Hess respectively, support the performance like invisible pillars, providing an all-too-rare consistency of tone throughout the writing and all of the production elements.

Each member of the cast gives a totally realized rendition of his or her character. Rarely have I been treated to a matched and balanced ensemble cast acting and reacting with the apparent effortlessness of a well-rehearsed orchestra. Each interpretation is layered, suggestive and compelling. Todd Kulczyk and Kristina Leach as the leads establish a relationship that is like a carpet of intimacy thrown over a minefield. Michael Serna’s Bernie is nothing so much as a whited sepulcher, a likable facade behind which lies a heart twisted by frustration and distorted by fear. 

Jason Buuck’s  hunky bartender-with-a-past burns like an underground fuse that explodes with powerful effect. Pamela Nicholson makes you feel her ache and her passion as the lonely, timid/aggressive lesbian, while Eric Eisenbrey delicately embodies the desperate, poorly disguised Angst of the teen waking up to his queerness. Christy Zollar as the damaged, drugged-out psychic nymphomaniac is a disturbingly dreamlike one-woman Greek chorus filtered through Freud and Jung. 

This is theatre doing and being its best. Bravo to Barton and crew for putting this one on.

Thru September 12 at the Empire Theatre, 200 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, CA. 714.547.4688.