The New Theatre Project’s “The Shape of the Bones,” with Richard Schumacher/Photo: George Hudson

It’s rare that I come away from a play wishing it had been twice as long, but that was my immediate response to the conclusion of Spencer Huffman’s “The Shape of the Bones,” a world-premiere religious drama presented by the always interesting, experimentally inclined New Theatre Project at Theater Wit. It was a few seconds before I realized that the play really was over, not just heading into intermission. While the play has much to commend it—a literate and serious-minded script, exceptional acting, a highly original staging and propulsive direction by Emily Blanquera, who manages to keep the story’s multiple balls in the air—it lacks not only the click of a satisfying ending, but also a fully developed back story and, for that matter, present story.

This is the first play I’ve seen written by Huffman, who’s made a name for himself recently by artfully directing a series of plays for NTP—including Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” and David Harrower’s controversial “Blackbird”—in a working factory on the North Side. As a playwright, Huffman puts his directorial chops to use in creating sharp-edged, highly theatrical scenes that crackle with dramatic energy. Commendably, he’s also willing to use silence and stillness to intensify mood and deepen audience attention. However, the storyline as a whole never quite coheres, and many of the scenes, engaging as they are, seem more like discrete mini-plays than plot points in a tightly structured, suspense-building tale.

There’s no central figure in the play, no focal point, which is part of the problem. The lion’s share of action, though, involves a twelve-year-old named Ben, part of a small religious community led by Pastor Riga, whose ideas have an apocalyptic flavor. Based on Ben’s visions, she believes that he—like a grown-up follower named Dan, who has mysteriously disappeared at some point in the recent past—is on the cusp of the Rapture, a mystical transformation described by Pastor Riga as “a leap toward divine unity.” Ben’s father, Brendan, whose marriage to Ben’s mother, Meredith, is already on the rocks due to a now-ended love affair with a younger woman, supports Ben and believes in his “calling.” Meredith, though, seeking to both protect and control her young son, turns against both Pastor Riga and her husband, whom she accuses of using their son to “claw his way back into the community.” The play’s cultish world also includes Nel, wife of the supposedly transfigured Dan. Now alone, she is responsible for caring for her wheelchair-bound father, Ed, who seems to have suffered a severe stroke, and her young daughter, Grace. Nel also has a tense relationship with her brother, Brooks, who is not part of the group and lives a life of beer-guzzling solitude.

That complicated background—enacted on director/set designer Blanquera’s three-part, stretched-out stage configuration that places the audience right in the midst of the action—would seem to be the foundation of an epic tale. But what we get is more modest: a series of small-scale, one-on-one vignettes that sidestep the big questions that the play raises by veering into domestic melodrama.

The New Theatre Project’s “The Shape of the Bones,” with Rae Gray, Gia Hinton and Archer Geye/Photo: George Hudson

And that’s a shame, considering the depth of talent that this production brings to bear. Standout local thespians abound, including Rae Gray as Pastor Riga, who is outwardly rational but inwardly—well, who knows. Then there’s the formidable Amanda Drinkall as mother/daughter/sister Nel, who is stretched to the snapping point by loneliness and overwhelming responsibility, and whose near-breakdown toward the end is as close as this cerebral play gets to an emotional climax. The most noteworthy performance, however, is by Archer Geye as the gawky, pre-teen Ben, whose dreams seem to portend a spiritual metamorphosis. Geye’s remarkable depth and maturity as an actor are apparent in every line he delivers, marking him as someone to watch. Almost without exception, the rest of the cast—including Gage Wallace as repentant sinner and true believer Brendan; Hilary Williams as his doubting, desperate, unforgiving wife, Meredith; Richard Schumacher as the frail, nonverbal Ed; and Ben Page as the skeptical outsider Brooks—give strong individual performances in juicy, high-intensity roles.

What’s missing, though, is real ensemble effect. After the first scene—a talk delivered by Pastor Riga to her flock that feels more like a grad-school lecture than a bible-thumping sermon—we never again see the performers assembled as a congregation. As a result, we’re never convinced this is a tight-knit, faith-based community. It seems like more of a dysfunctional family, simmering with barely suppressed dissent, hostility and discontent. It’s a mystery how the group could have formed in the first place, as cult leader Pastor Riga, who tosses around bloodless phrases like “normative spiritual culture” and “thought leaders,” comes off as more smarmy than charismatic.

The play doesn’t so much end as just stop, with no sense of resolution either for individual characters or the community as a whole. Missing its final act, the play feels like an evasion, a cop-out. What makes stories like this one interesting is the conflict within individuals between faith and doubt. However, none of these characters seems torn or uncertain on a spiritual level. They’re on one side or the other from the beginning, meaning the play offers little in the way of either tension or character development.

“The Shape of the Bones” as presented here strikes me as a work in progress, a way for the playwright to see his characters in action as he figures out what exactly he has to say about a highly charged, very personal subject. The story’s bones—the basic elements of a powerful religious drama—are already present. But they’ll remain dry bones until they’re shaped into something clearer, more decisive and more complete.

The New Theatre Project’s “The Shape of the Bones” runs through March 22 at Theater Wit, 1229 West Belmont. Tickets are $25-$32, available at thenewtheatreproject.com.