Detroit

It's not every day a play demands a Walk of Shame the morning after. We mean that in a good way.

At first, the premise of "Detroit" (which doesn't actually seem to be set in the city of Detroit, or any other specific place for that matter) doesn't seem promising: An older couple in an oddball suburb that seems to have fallen on hard times meets a young couple who just took the house next door. All four of them are a little bit nuts and nobody is comfortable, but they keep hanging out because, hey, neighbors, what choice do they have?

Even the speared, phallic hot dog on the program seems to suggest that we're in for "God of Carnage" in a backyard. What we get instead is unpredictable, totally bizarre and actually beautiful in a disquieting kind of way. Lisa D'Amour's script was a nominee for the Pulitzer four years ago, and it looks like they're still not just giving those nominations away. This one is rocking some scary good voodoo.

Luisa Frasconi is Sharon, a scatterbrain prone to fits of morbid blabbering. Patrick Kelly Jones is her husband Kenny, miming some hardcore PTSD, appearing pinned, scared and angry whenever he's not looking anyone in the face. We soon find out that the pair are recovering addicts who met in rehab, and the play is coy about whether they've fallen off the wagon or are just naturally a bit off kilter.

But the older couple aren't exactly a prize between them either: Ben (Jeff Garrett) is a well-meaning blunderer with a kind of hazy, fast-talking demeanor (plus a Kabuki mask face that is sometimes even a little too emotive but a delight to watch anyway). Mary (Amy Resnick) has a drinking problem and is crass in a TMI kind of way.

So far this sounds like any number of newish plays that we've all seen and mostly shrugged at over the years. Two things make "Detroit" special: First, it's clear from the earliest scenes that in spite of everything these are good couples who need each other. Screwed up, but good. And even though everyone is weirded out, we can also tell that the four make genuinely good friends and very much need each other.

Unlikely though it sounds, the play is ultimately not at the character's expense, which is incredibly refreshing. Rather than being a predictable black comedy in slightly poor taste like it could have been, "Detroit" is frequently touching and poignant because we care what happens to everyone, even if we don't mind laughing at them. "They weren't bad people," one couple says of the other in the last scene, and we believe it.

And then there's the ending. We can't give it away, of course, but it starts out funny, transitions into discomfort and then plummets into a truly scary place. It also features some technical wizardry that, again, we can't explain in even a vague way without spoiling. But it reaches apocalyptic heights that are unexpected and fiendishly beautiful.

The usual phantoms of 21st century economic freakout mindset haunt the whole affair: layoffs, foreclosures and dwindling savings accounts. The town is all prefab houses and artificial turf (at least Jerry Brown would be pleased), a world full of flimsy things: houses, furniture, lies, assumptions and identities.

"Detroit" runs through July 26 at the Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St. in Berkeley. For tickets and information, call 510-843-4822 or visit AuroraTheatre.org