Coronado

Dennis Lehane, known primarily for his novels (“Gone Baby Gone,” “Mystic River,” “Shutter Island”), recently turned one of his short stories, “Until Gwen,” into a play, his first. Coronadowas originally produced by the Invisible City Theater in NYC; now a gutsy new theatre company in L.A., Player King Productions, has mounted the West Coast premiere of the play.

Director Drew Shirley has done Lehane proud, putting together an 11-person cast that deftly and flawlessly brings Coronado to life -- no mean feat, considering the challenges posed by the play.

Lehane's dark, gritty tale unfolds in a series of short scenes salted with flakes of pungent, hardboiled dialogue. Form matches content: a world in which flawed, wounded people battle fitfully, desperately to cling to their hopes and dreams.

At the heart of the action are Bobby (Samuel Dahl) and his father (David Preston), a vicious criminal whose legacy to his son was to "put him on the con at the age of six." Bobby, recently out of prison, finds himself in a lethal war of wits with his father over the whereabouts of a stolen diamond.

Among the other edgy, hard-drinking characters are a young couple, Will (Brahm Gallagher) and Gina (Gina Lohman), who are so ferociously -- make that insanely -- in love that they hatch up a plot to kill her husband, Hal (Mark Schroeder); and a self-destructive psychiatrist (Shawn Parsons) who is sleeping with his sexy but unstable patient (Emily Elizabeth).

Coronado jumps back and forth in time, mixes realism and surrealism, and alludes more than it explains. Its strange, mysterious world holds you in its grip, though -- makes you feel for its characters, even if you don't completely understand or like them. Coronado is not only about crime and punishment, but compassion and redemption as well.