“Something Happened” – a world premiere musical at Pacific States in El Segundo

Allan Louis as Gary in L. Trey Wilson’s “Something Happened,” playing through May 16. Photo by Steven Moses

Well, what’s really happened is that with just two plays, this one by L. Trey Wilson (who also directs) and “Lobby Hero,” by Kenneth Lonergan, Pacific Stages has brought an unprecedented kind of theater to the South Bay: New, gutsy, and smart. And people are still wondering why I pooh-poohed “Bark!”

“Something Happened” radiates from a single incident: Doug and Deanna Piper (William Christian and Mashari Laila Bain) return home from an evening out to find their teenage son, Donovan (Eric B. Anthony), in a compromising situation. Let’s just say that Donovan’s boyhood friend and high school classmate, Raymond (Rob Nelson), has a key role in this episode, which will soon enough entangle the latter’s parents, Bernard and Melanie Taylor (Christopher Guyton and Fuschia!).

It’s possible that a largely white South Bay audience will ask why good money should be spent watching a drama – even a drama with levity and wit – that initially focuses on a pair of sexually precocious black teenagers. The reason, first of all, is that “Something Happened” immediately transcends its particulars and becomes a probing and insightful look at relationships on every level, about identity and commitment and family and about figuring out who we are and how we fit in, and then dealing with and adapting to any new configurations that may eventually arise. You can be any color under the rainbow and still have to face this, many times, in your own life.

Naturally, young people have plenty to explore, and in this case the search for identity is overtly symbolized by Raymond’s deciding to call himself Rashid and, later on, Saul. He’s trying on different names the way someone else tries on different hats, but in the end what he’s really looking for is a clear sense of self.

“Something Happened” is multilevel and complex in a way that can only be touched upon in a review. It could be argued that Deanna Piper is at the core of this play and that she crystallizes in front of us, first, through the Pipers’ friendship with the easygoing Tom and Hosanna Brennan (Jeorge Watson, Lisa Canning), whose marriage contract is tied with a different set of knots, and secondly through her family’s relationship with the Taylors. Bernard Taylor, for example, has a more rigid level of flexibility with regards to his concepts of right and wrong, and of what he can accept.

The actors are commendable, and if anything they lean toward the emphatic rather than the restrained, with the exception of Allan Louis as Gary, a long-ago friend of Doug Piper who only appears for a few minutes. Louis gives a commanding performance at a volume not much louder than a whisper.

That said, it requires some suspension of belief – but just some – to accept Anthony and Nelson as teenagers still living under the wings of their moms and dads and trundling off to high school each day. But that’s more of an observation than a criticism because they, and the entire cast, put so much potent energy into the play. They fully engage us – emotionally, intellectually – from start to finish.

A note on the theater itself: This is a converted space and occasionally one can hear sounds from outdoors, and (in this production) the lighting from the rear of the stage toward the audience is slightly disconcerting if happenstance has put you in the wrong seat. Otherwise, it’s easy: I recommend this brilliant piece of theater with no hesitation.

Something Happened, which is a world premiere, is playing at Pacific Stages, 2041 Rosecrans Ave., #170 – across the plaza from the Pacific Theatres Beach Cities Cinema – in El Segundo. Performances, Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m., and Sunday at 5 p.m. Tickets, $34.99 general; $25 students. Closes Sunday, May 16. Call (310) 868-2631 or go to pacificstages.org. ER