This may not sound like a compliment, but it is. "Bug," an adult psychothriller that opened Thursday at the Blue Barn Theatre, made my flesh crawl.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what Pulitzer-winning playwright Tracy Letts ("August, Osage County") was after when he wrote "Bug."

The action centers on Agnes (Kim Gambino), a lonely, hard-edged waitress dreading the return of Jerry, a menacing ex-husband just out of prison (Kevin Barratt, in a particularly fine bit of character acting). Agnes lives in a cheap motel, and the entire story unfolds in her seedy room (detailed design by Martin Scott Marchitto, props by Darin Kuehler).

Agnes drinks a lot between tokes of marijuana and lines of coke.

Enter R.C. (Erika Zadina), a friend from work who brings along a new friend, Peter (Brian Zealand), when she drops by one night to party.

Peter and Agnes eye each other warily at first, but there's an attraction. Their troubled pasts unfold piecemeal as the relationship develops.

Peter says he's a veteran, AWOL from a hospital. Dr. Sweet (Nick Zadina), who treated him there, is looking for Peter. But Peter says he was a med-psych guinea pig, and he's not going back.

While some stories are about how two people's broken pieces fit together to make them whole, "Bug" is about how two people's jagged edges can drag each other down and tear them to pieces.

Letts is a smart enough playwright to exploit the twitchy paranoia inside all of us. He pushes our buttons through the accelerating fears of Agnes and Peter, while occasionally leavening the mood with unexpected pockets of humor.

He grounds their beliefs in just enough reality to leave us asking: What is real here, and what is paranoia fueled by mental illness and a drug binge? There's so much we can't see: in Peter's microscope, behind that closed door, or through that window blind.

Expertly calculated lighting design by Carol Wisner drenches the proceedings in moody ambience. And is that hovering helicopter noise, or that jet buzzing the motel, or that truck traffic that sounds so near for real? Martin Magnuson's sound design is like another character in the show, wearing on us and messing with our heads.

So, when Peter and Agnes awake in the middle of the night and start tearing the bed apart searching for insects, we're as caught up in what they might find as we are skeptical.

By the way, both are stark naked during this scene, which is played in less than half-light from a blinking motel sign outside the window and, eventually, a bathroom light that's switched on. This isn't about turn-ons. It's about vulnerability.

Gambino and Zealand give amazing, brave, gut-wrenching performances that dig deep, descending to very dark places as the action progresses. Particularly memorable: a scene in which Peter pours out his heart to Agnes through a locked bathroom door, and a long, breathless rant in which Agnes connects one paranoid dot to another on her way to the absolute bottom.

This isn't easy theater. But it is powerhouse drama, electric in its slow build toward a violent, explosive climax.

Kudos to the fine ensemble cast and Susan Clement-Toberer's sure-footed direction for the squirm-inducing bugs they find in all of us.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com