There's a lovely scene midway through "H2O," the Jane Martin play being produced by Gremlin Theatre, as the work's two characters whirl around an empty stage in a marvelously graceful waltz. Cherish this idyllic moment; it won't be repeated.

Instead, most of Martin's visceral drama balances figuratively, and sometimes literally, on a knife edge of tension as its two characters wrestle over Shakespeare, the meaning of faith and the salvation of a human soul.

Jake, played with ferocious energy by Peter Christian Hansen, has been catapulted from a hardscrabble upbringing to sudden wealth and celebrity as the superstar hero of a trio of action movies. In the process he's learned that when you can buy everything, nothing has any value. In a desperate attempt to redeem himself, he plans to mount and star in a Broadway production of "Hamlet."

Enter Deborah (Ashley Rose Montondo), a struggling actor and fundamentalist Christian whom Jake is determined to cast as his Ophelia. She's equally determined to maintain her integrity, which means taking the role only on her own terms. As these two polar opposites progress toward the opening night of "Hamlet," their personality conflict becomes a battle over faith vs. nihilism.

The beauty of this provocative play is the life-or-death urgency that Martin lends to what could merely be a dry, dialectic argument. Beginning with a shocking suicide attempt and continuing through the ups and downs of an obsessive and fractious courtship, these two characters become much more than two soldiers in the culture wars; they are instead fully realized human beings on a heartbreakingly inevitable collision course.

Gremlin gives this play an electric production under Ellen Fenster's capable direction. She carefully modulates the play's challenging tone, which ranges from sly comedy to romance and from contemplative introspection to sudden brutality at breakneck pace over the course of 90 minutes. Four people, termed Essentials, assist with onstage costume changes, move set pieces in and out and hand over props, but it's clear that only Deborah and Jake fully inhabit this fraught world.

Hansen's Jake is a chaotic force of nature, simmering rage and coiled energy underlying even his most vulnerable revelations. It's an edgy, dangerous performance that visibly demonstrates the self-loathing underlying this character's every impulse. Montondo is equally effective in what is perhaps the more challenging role, conveying Deborah's deep religious beliefs and almost surreal confidence in her faith with an authenticity that's completely convincing.

​"H2O" is a boldly provocative piece, and Gremlin's finely acted and carefully tuned production gives its intellectual argument all the raw emotion, edge-of-your-seat energy and unpredictability it deserves.

Lisa Brock is a Minneapolis writer.