Nothing about a synopsis of Opus will drive people to rush out and see it: a play about the backstage tensions and harmonies between members of a famous string quartet, written by a violist-cum-playwright who wants the actors to interact as the instruments would in a real-life quartet? It sounds so mannered and fancy, dry as a starched tuxedo shirt. As for "violist-cum-playwright"—what gall to have enough talent for two separate, full-time arts careers. You don't want to buy a ticket to Michael Hollinger's play; you want to spit in his eye.

But Hollinger is as good as his résumé (which is to say, better than we are). Opus is a tense, visceral, and musical script, performed by excellent local actors and carefully directed by Braden Abraham (My Name Is Rachel Corrie).

The Lezara String Quartet has fired its inspired and erratically crazy violist Dorian (Todd Jefferson Moore) and replaced him with a young, nervous woman named Grace (Chelsey Rives). She has every right to her nervousness. A tetchy diva named Elliot (Allen Fitzpatrick) leads the quartet's other members—a schlumpy divorcée named Alan (Shawn Belyea) and a grumbling but good-hearted cellist named Carl (Charles Leggett)—and they all fight with each other. A lot. The rancor increases as the quartet prepares for a White House concert honoring a certain two-term philistine. (Grace wonders if it matters that she didn't vote for him. "None of us voted for him," Elliot replies. "He's a pig.") The ghost of Dorian haunts the rehearsals and the script: He appears in flashbacks, flitting carelessly about the stage, sometimes catalyzing arguments, sometimes diffusing them, always unpredictable. But once he's gone, the arguments don't stop.

Opus details the crucible of collaboration and all the hair-tearing and teeth-gnashing required to make something beautiful. (One hopes the actors were more cordial to each other than their characters.) Everyone turns in great performances. Moore is flighty, charming, and infuriating; Rives hides a few razors beneath her blushes; Fitzpatrick is fussy and driven; Belyea slouches and flirts with a rogue's charm; and Leggett is the play's basso profundo, giving Opus its ballast. In the beginning, he tells a joke. A string quartet, he says, is "a good violinist, a bad violinist, a former violinist, and somebody who doesn't care about the violin." The joke first seems like a light embellishment—but it's a leitmotif that comes to a shocking conclusion.