Tennis, anyone? Yes, please!—as long as it's played with the wicked brio that opens Act 2 of Hell Meets Henry Halfway. Here, on some mythic court, Henry's vicious and dissatisfied society-girl fiancee, Maya, is pitted against her tennis-coach/lover, a vulgarian named Marian. (Name aside, Marian's a man—sort of.)

That loving-loathing romantic triangle—Henry, Maya and Marian—is, for me, the best part of Hell. The characters may be archetypal and the conclusion inevitable—but Adriano Shaplin (playwright), Dan Rothenberg (director) and the virtuosic Pig Iron actors make of it something unique.

There's more to Hell, of course. Based on a 1939 novel by Polish author Witold Gombrowicz, the Pig Iron show is a freewheeling adaptation that retains some of the Eastern European imagination and wartime ethos. The complex and sometimes nonsensical plot invites decoding. Are we looking at the demise of one class system and the creation of another? That's one way to think about Henry, a pitiable personal assistant to a decaying prince (Henry can't wait for his employer to die, and leave him with a little money). Chekhovian dark comic strains abound, especially in the wheezing family doctor, a moth-eaten old guy who seems on the brink of a messy respiratory explosion, and incapable of treating anybody. Maybe this is a world beyond healing.

Ideas are bandied about like Hell's tennis balls—but Pig Iron also inserts a lot of farcical and contemporary low-comedy. Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel plays Marian with hilarious, and thoroughly American, uncouthness. James Sugg is Jon the Ballboy, a lurching simpleton who wouldn't be out of place in Dodgeball.

You might say that Hell Meets Henry is like August Strindberg meets Adam Sandler.

What I think we can all agree on is that Hell is superbly done in every sense—especially Matt Saunders' marvelous set (including a fabulous magical cabinet) and James Sugg's evocative soundscape. There are superlative comic turns from the entire cast. In addition to those already mentioned, I especially liked Geoff Sobelle as Dr. Hincz and Dito van Riegersberg's quiet desperation as Henry.