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"Happiness," said the hapless filmmaker Guido Anselmi in Federico Fellini's film 8 1/2, "consists of being able to tell the truth without hurting anyone."

That might be Eric Samuelsen's new play "Borderlands" in a small, slightly cracked, nutshell. But devout Mormon that Samuelsen is, and astute playwright to boot, the Brigham Young University English professor has that, and a lot more, up his sleeve.

Set in a used car lot in Provo, and in a time called "now" that stretches onward into the future, this is a play with a lot of talking, a lot of ulterior motives and more than a few plodding segues into scenes that begin to look overly familiar. But it's got a lot going on under the hood. It may take a while to get warmed up, but once it fires on all cylinders it handles like a dream.

Dave McGregor, played by Kirt Bateman, is the all-American man washed up by a monster-size midlife crisis that's left him alienated from his church, divorced, and tagged with an ankle monitor. For perhaps the first time in his life, he feels liberated. Anyone else might be ashamed of working on their sister's car lot, as he does for his sister Phyllis, but not Dave. "The best thing I ever did was crash and burn," he says.

Gail Lewis, played by Stephanie Howell, is a Mormon housewife with an Amway business, a marriage on the rocks, and the nagging sense that her son shouldn't be wasting time preparing for his mission. "You're not helping people," she confides to Dave in one of their many chats sitting inside a car that sits on Phyllis' lot. "You're bothering people in their homes to tell them that their beliefs aren't good enough."

She'd speak her mind, but can't bear the thought of shaking up her already unsettled life. If Dave is drawn to Gail for reasons he can't quite name, Gail at least admires Dave for his honesty, even though she can't abide by how he let it wreck his life. The paradox of all these chats inside a car that goes nowhere is, of course, that Samuelsen's characters are in fact driving through their own obstacle courses.

Plan-B's set squeezes the maximum atmosphere with a minimum of fixtures. Rally flags quiver in fan-induced breeze across two hanging squares of generic white window blinds. The cast pulls off a considerable trick pretending to sit inside cars that are nothing but colored chairs on a riser. But what counts most is the various accoutrements that give the stage its "Provoesque" feel and suspend everything in authenticity: a cooler of Diet Cokes, Gail's Laura Ashley dresses, the way the characters throw off familiar valley phrases.

If Bateman lends Dave an emollience removed from the swagger we might expect from a man who works a used car lot, that may be part of the point. This is, after all, a play that sets out to lance assumptions and appearances. Both Howell and Teri Cowan, who plays Phyllis, deliver authentic portraits of Utah women at a crossroads. They may be troubled to varying degrees, but still proud and nervy enough to draw the line.

It's actor Topher Rasmussen who kicks the drama into high gear. He's the spike-haired, tight-jeaned Brian, a 17-year-old sent by his parents from South Carolina to his aunt Gail to "straighten out" his sexuality. Gail's concerned for him. Dave tolerates him with a smile. Only Phyllis can't stand the sight of this "homosexual predator." Rasmussen plays his character above it all. Austere with a trace of snark, he never lapsed into conceit that would have diminished the play's final effects.

It's not just honesty and truth-telling at work here. Samuelsen molds the play's dialogue into a miniature treatise on the true depth of religious faith. Believing and knowing you're a member of the church doesn't guarantee you'll act like one. Holding to all the faith's requirements doesn't mean you'll be accepted as one, either.

So far, so obvious. But it's the way Samuelsen drives this point home that matters, and in the play's final scene the cast creates a small piece of theater magic. Samuelsen turns retribution into redemption, hinting at a rich, uncharted map of human relations that might be redrawn, if and when we find the courage to cross over. —

'Borderlands'

When • Through April 10. Thursday and Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 4 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. with an extra show Sunday, April 10 at 6 p.m.

Where • 138 S. 300 South, Studio Theatre at Rose Wagner

Info• $10-$20. Call 801-355-ARTS for tickets, or visit planbtheatre.org.

Bottom line • A spiritually riveting dramatic work by one of Utah's best playwrights, even if it starts off slow. Ninety minutes, without intermission.