Performing Arts

History got made Friday as Kitchen Dog Theater opened the world premiere of Zayd Dohrn's Sick. Mr. Dohrn seems destined to become a major American playwright, and Sick is a theatrical fable at once profound and witty.

MIKE STONE/Special Contributor

The strong cast includes (from left) Martha Harms, Lee Helms, James Crawford and Lee Trull.

The play begins with a sneaky allusion to another brilliant early work, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Sid, a professor and famous poet (James Crawford), brings home his graduate student Jim (Lee Trull) as a living witness to a family crisis. Sid's wife, Maxine (Lisa Hassler), wears a doctor's mask as she compulsively cleans their Lower East Side New York apartment. Crisis is brewing as Maxine starts talking about the couple's children, and we begin to wonder if they are as imaginary as the son in the Albee.

But no, Sarah (Martha Harms) and David (Lee Helms) slowly descend the stairs, also masked and, like their mother, dressed in clinical white. We can't quite tell their age, though both are clearly past adolescence. They've inherited Maxine's debilitating allergies and don't leave the house.

Sarah and David bond with Jim in their separate ways. Jim can't help feeling a pawn in the family war games, but in the course of the evening he learns as much about himself as he does his hosts.

Another thing that brings Mr. Albee to mind – and for more than just a few moments – is Mr. Dohrn's mastery of theatrical rhetoric. He's never as ostentatiously formal as the older playwright, but his dialogue has the same tensile strength and the same ferociously quicksilver sense of humor. He can spin a yarn, too.

The first of a rolling series of premieres sponsored by the National New Play Network, Kitchen Dog's production, directed by Christopher Carlos, is one of the company's best ever. We see Mr. Crawford in a fresh light, manic and macho and bullying. Ms. Hassler, having to play behind her mask for so long, doesn't seem to have as much opportunity to show her stuff – but her chance eventually comes, and she seizes it magnificently. The observant outsider role would also seem to limit Mr. Trull's options, but in fact he finds depths and layers in the character.

The real news, though, is the superb work done by two actors who've just graduated from Southern Methodist University. Many students there have done professional work this season, but not as successfully as Mr. Helms and Ms. Harms here. Mr. Helms gives us pathos while getting big laughs, while Ms. Harms is stunning all around – in looks, presence, intelligence, emotional range, you name it.

I have the feeling people all over America are going to be talking about Sick. Don't fail to catch this first production so you can say you knew about it from the very beginning.

PLAN YOUR LIFEThrough June 28 at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary. Runs 105 mins. $15 to $20. 214-953-1055, www.kitchendogtheater.org.

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