People are quirky. Relationships are complicated. Life isn’t all sunshine and unicorns. Onions can either be really sweet and deeply flavorful if they are sautéed low and slow or sharp and bitter if they’re left raw and unadulterated. And sometimes Onion is just a name.

“The Onion Game,” next up for the Irish Classical Theatre is a drama with darkly funny moments…and it’s also a comedy with moments of drama. Just like real life.

The Onion Game will enjoy its world premiere on the Andrews Theatre stage March 6 through 29.

“The Onion Game” is the story of Pearl and Onion, two people unhappily married, with children they don’t understand, and aspirations they most likely won’t reach. And they’ll be together until they aren’t. Which could be sooner or later.

Director Greg Natale says directing Bryan Delaney’s production is a different experience from the last Delaney show he directed for ICTC. “I directed “The Seedbed” a couple seasons ago,” he said. “It wasn’t as humorous as this is meant to be. This show is written to be funny on top of some bizarre stuff.”

Delaney agrees. “It is quite different from “The Seedbed.”I wanted to write a full on comedy to make a boisterous night in the theatre.”

Boisterous, with some very human and raw moments. The comedy actually comes from these moments and how the characters handle their humanity. Natale says the show is “not Eugene O’Neill kind of bleak where everything is bleak. It’s more like a situation comedy, where all points of view are taking to the extreme level and therein lies the comedy.” He says that it’s “challenging for the actors, too. There’s a seriousness to the characters, a sense of purpose, but we need to allow the humor to come out.”

Delaney says this story of married and misunderstood life  can be “disturbing with difficult themes. There will be laughter, but it will be uncomfortable laughter,” he says.

Delaney says he finds it challenging to write sustained comedy, and that’s why he’s so fascinated by the intersection between comedy and tragedy in “The Onion Game”, and “that blend of dark and comedic. It’s a demented prism of life.” The satisfaction for both the playwright and the director will come from the audience reaction. Both are prepared to observe how different audience personalities will ‘take’ the show. “Every night will be different,” Delaney says.

Tickets and more information on “The Onion Game” are online here.