Road Less Traveled Production of Burn This (on stage until May 18) is a scorching and fierce examination of grief and the ways we manage it.

Playwright Lanford Wilson set this in 1987 New York City when Robbie dies in a boating accident with his partner.  His roommates Anna, a fellow dancer, played by Leah Berst, and Larry (Kevin Craig) and brother Pale (Nicholas Stevens) are working through their grief in very different ways. Anna’s beau Burton (Ricky Needham in his RLTP debut) is more detached.

There’s a lot of anguish and anger in Wilson’s script and this quartet of superb actors manage these extreme emotions quite well. Berst opens the show quietly in the shadows of Collin Raney’s nicely appointed set and John Rickus’ evocative lighting, first drinking coffee and smoking against a wall and then spinning into a furious, stumbling interpretive dance.  It’s the first scene appearance of Stevens that is so jarring: he’s full of fury as Pale, the brother who is ashamed of his gay brother and heartbroken by his loss, fueled by substances that are swinging his emotions high and low. It’s disturbing how good Stevens is at this level of passion and loss: he’s so intense, it’s almost hard to watch.

The first act felt long, perhaps because of the high level of emotion and the tension it created. So well acted, it was palpable, but such a ferocious amount of anger, it was uncomfortable. The tension led to verbal and physical fighting and fight/intimacy director Shelby Converse created some very real stage moments here.

Act two did bring some important resolution for key characters and a slice-of-unpleasant-life story. If act one felt interminable, act two’s sense of triumph and the resulting semblance of peace balanced the story.

There are always casting surprises. Needham is a such a joyous and joyful comedic actor, it was unsettling to see him portraying a character who is pretty easy to dislike. Ditto Craig, whose work last season in Every Brilliant Thing at Second Generation was mesmerizing and then he was absolutely hysterical in Disaster the Musical at MusicalFare Theatre. His character Larry was almost a ’80s cliche of a gay man, but he did turn the story around for Anna and Pale which was heroic in its own way.

I can understand the importance of the title and the metaphor for visual destruction to move past heartbreak to strip away the old and allow new growth to happen. But yowza, it was quite a ride.

Burn This runs two and half hours with a much needed 10-minute intermission