If man's wretched existence ever needed a finer hand to paint comic despair, look no further than director Jason Nodler with his quartet of superlative interpreters all in the service of the apocalyptic vision from Samuel Beckett.

Described as "a ghost story for three bodies with three voices," Anna Bella Eema blurs the line between the real and the imaginary. The format is stark and simple. Three women sit in chairs and speak their stories, sometimes alternating monologues, sometimes as dialogue. They punctuate the action using the many props on the folding TV tables set out before each one. Periodically, they sing a capella incantations, laments, primal cries - nothing like conventional song.

Within a harsh Samuel Beckett universe, D'Amour deftly mines the magic realism vein. Tales of wise talking foxes and such lend a Little Prince vibe. The line "I was visited by a werewolf once" is presented as matter-of-factly as "I was visited by a social worker once." D'Amour has a way with the psychologically telling line, as when Anna Bella expresses anger with her mom: "Even though I'm only 10, she fills me with the rage of a powerless middle-aged man."

Mickle Maher’s play is as masterful as they come, a simple story told in a genius style. While the majority of dialogue is delivered in rhymed verse, the script manages to avoid the old-fashioned bouncing rhymes that often invade a metered method. The lines of There Is a Happiness That Morning Is do not bounce. They ooze sophistication, wind complicated puns and set up stunning contrast for an occasional burst of modern profanity. Maher isn’t a rhyming poet, but a matchmaker who allows words to meet, woo, and sing harmony.

This bare bones outline doesn't begin to hint at the play's--and the production's--riches. Maher has written most of it in metered, rhyming verse, some of which sounds truly Shakespearean. But, lest ye tremble, he's also made it great fun. ... I laughed, gasped, and scratched my head. A great night of theater.