In Bowie Community theatre's gripping new drama, "Someone Who'll Watch Over Me," the three characters are hostages, caught in the political madness of Beirut in 1980.
But, in a very real sense, audiences also will be held captive - by the struggle for the dignity, sanity, and survival of three flawed but good and immensely brave men.
Frank McGuiness' play insightfully and passionately directed by Mickey Handwerger, is hard to watch, but also hard to walk away from.
You'll ache at the pain these men suffer - and inflict upon each other.
But you also won't soon forget the bond these strangers forge in the face of misery, cruelty and very real danger.
In that bond, that recognition of responsibility, and in their unquenched desire to be free, lies the unexpected message of hope at the play's core.
The Bowie production, which opened last weekend at the Bowie Playhouse, is nothing less than a triple tour de force by its cast.
Eric Lund plays Adam, an American doctor who is first captured and first to be brought to the rough, bleak room that is the hostages' cell, so effectively evoked by Duane Rouch's white-washed board set and so uncompromisingly lit by lighting designer Garrett Hyde.
Adam is the gentle, kind, idealistic one, whose innocence the others come to prize. He is also the peacemaker, who calms and sustains the other two, but who is also troubled by terrible dreams and fears. He has known the worst of captivity, because he has been alone. Lund portrays him with compelling understanding and compassion.
Kevin Wallace, as Edward, an Irish journalist, is as volatile and vocal as Lund is steady and thoughtful. A hard-living, hard-driven man, he is tormented by the regret that he has pushed away his wife and not taken the time to know his children, and now never may.
In Wallace's hands, he is a complex, charismatic, charming and irritating man, whose best weapons against despair and self-pity are a quick wit, biting humor and a healthy awareness of his failings.
Last captured, and brought to the cell when the others have already established a kind of relationship and routine, is Michael, played by Dan Kavanaugh. A widowed English academic, Michael is bewildered by his fate; a scholar of dead languages and ancient litarature, how could he be a threat or a prize to any political faction?
Polite, well-bred and emotionally circumspect in the British fashion, Kavanaugh plays him with dignity, as the character finds an unexpected strength in his ordeal.
Playwright McGuiness leads all three through the experience of the hostage with a palpable authenticity: the defiance, the despair; the show of bravery, the nagging fear; the self-recriminations (surely they knew the dangers of coming to such a place), the anger at a fanatical enemy; the crushing boredom, the moments of sheer terror; and the unspoken fear, that the world has forgotten and moved on.
What may come as more of a surprise is how he also captures the humor of the situation, some of it gallows humor, to be sure, but also the pure joy that the men can take in a bit of storytelling, a moment of connection, and, most simply, life.
In "Someone Who'll Watch Over Me," Bowie Community Theatre has taken up a significant challenge. This is a serious, demanding play. The language is raw as it must be. At 2 1/2 hours, the play also requires some stamina from its audience, just as it demands it of the actors.
But the rewards are rich. This is an opportunity ton be moved by three absolutely convincing performances. It is a chance to be astonished at what can be done on a small and inhospitable space.
But, above all, it is a lesson to be learned about the resilience of the human spirit.
