In Elizabeth Meriwether's The Mistakes Madeline Made, a twentysomething woman finds herself trapped in an idiosyncratic but readily identifiable urban hell. During the day, she works as one of a dozen personal assistants serving a Family of Great Wealth and Prominence in Manhattan; at night, she scours the city for disposable sex partners to help fuck away her pain, the majority of which seems to be caused by her troubled older brother, a shell-shocked war correspondent who's taken up residence in her bathtub (providing our protagonist with an excuse for not bathing, to the growing olfactory horror of those around her). Every inhabitant of Meriwether's world seems to be begging for help—some silently, others screamingly—and the idea of assistance runs through the play's various plots, which revolve around those rich enough to buy all the help they could ever need, alongside those who don't know how to ask for or accept help even when they need it most.

Meriwether's play (which premiered at NYC's Naked Angels Theater Company in 2006) is brought to brilliant life by director Michael Place, an ace five-person cast, and the show's designers, who deliver across-the-board excellence, from Rob Witmer's sharp, sprightly sound design to Christine Tschirgi's impeccable costuming. But as with any thoroughly successful production, the majority of props shall be dumped on the cast, which is uniformly stellar. Earning individual name-checks: Mary Bliss Mather, who fleshes out her Suzanne Bouchardian role—a brittle perfectionist heading a team of personal assistants—with wit and brains and executes it with relish; Ray Tagavilla, who carefully wends his way through a kooky-character role that could have been oppressively Mork-y; and Elise Hunt as our troubled female protagonist, who holds the whole odd and wonderful construct together, figuring out her 21st-century shit before our eyes while getting literally and figuratively funky.

My only quibble is saved for the woman who made the whole thing possible—playwright Elizabeth Meriwether, who builds her onstage world with great wit and economy, only to have it trudge somewhat laboriously to its halfway-happy ending. But five minutes of gassiness at the end of a dazzling 90-minute play is a forgivable sin, and The Mistakes Madeline Made is the kind of play that makes you glad there are plays. Go see it.