Latest Christopher Durang play has Rhode Island premiere

Pawtucket's Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) is presenting "Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them." The play runs until June 5, 2011.

Famed American playwright Christopher Durang ("Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You," "Beyond Therapy," "The Marriage of Bette and Boo") has concocted a world of ill-fated marriage, politics and porn, with a plot that views serious issues through the prism of dark-witted satire. The play debuted on Broadway in 2009 and won rave reviews.

"The theater is what lets a playwright like Mr. Durang heighten absurd, vicious human behavior into detoxifying Absurdity and - for a few silly, happy moments - create an artificial world in which all wrongs are righted, and mutually respectful couples go dancing in the dark without crashing," wrote Ben Brantley in the New York Times.

The play's topical themes appealed to Director Tony Estrella.

"It's dark, hilarious and absurd," explains Estrella. "A thinking man's (and woman's) satire that gets to the heart of the farce that was the Bush Administration and their handling of terrorism in the first decade of the twentieth century. It's satire, it's parody, but it's also an ironically sober look at empathy and compassion as the only hurdle to society's headlong race toward barbarism."

The cast of actors playing increasingly paranoid and anxious characters includes Casey Seymour Kim as Felicity, a nice girl from a conventional family; Alexander Platt (Paul in the North American premiere of "Paul") as her husband, Zamir, a mysterious man of indeterminate ethnicity; and Wendy Overly as her ditzy mom and Sam Babbitt as her trigger-happy father.

Estrella has enjoyed working with the cast on the production, although it has been a challenge as well.

"The process has been tough, it's high octane farce at points but needs to remain in the human sphere," Estrella explained. "('Why Torture is Wrong...') is a rare comedy that can make you laugh uproariously and contemplate the war in each of us between the civil and the savage."

"Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them" runs from May 5 through June 5 at The Gamm Theatre, 172 Exchange St., Pawtucket, RI. Tickets are $30 and $40 (depending on day/time), preview and press performances (May 5-9) only $25. Discounts for subscribers, groups of 10 or more, seniors and students. For tickets call 401-723-4266 or go to gammtheatre.org.