By Amanda Knox

Paul Downs Colaizzo’s Really Really gnarls your viscera. It’s a psychological thriller you want to look away from, but can’t. You think you know what’s happening, but then your expectations are so utterly dashed that all you can do is gawk in horrified stupefaction and lean forward, gripping your knee caps, bracing for the last.

Modern twists turn about a timeless violence. At an average college house party, Leigh (Jessi Little) follows Davis (Riley Shanahan) into his bedroom. They have sex. Leigh says she was raped. Davis was so drunk he can’t remember, but he’s a good guy, he wouldn’t do that. Their friends are forced to take a stand, as witnesses, defenders, prosecutors. What really happened? Each new scene informs and challenges the last. The stakes are ever-raised. You feel like you’re watching a plane plummeting from the sky, you know it’s going to crash, but you can’t see the ground and you don't know why.

All the more horrifying is the fact that Really Really is, depending to your perspective, either highly relatable or highly recognizable. The girls’ apartment is decorated with Crate and Barrel. The boys’ apartment is strewn with textbooks, empty beer cans, and video game controllers. We know these kids. We’re both exasperated by and believe in these kids. They just want to be happy. Just want to work hard and get a good job. Just want to rise up in the world. Just want to belong. Just want to be. Me. Me. Me.

The strength of ArtsWest’s production is the actors. Everyone succeeds in conveying distinct personalities with realistic motivations. All are quivering on the edge, in turn are both the perpetrators and victims of intense physical and psychological trauma. Everyone is convincing. In particular, Joshua Chessin-Yudin plays a perfectly puppy-like Cooper and Anna Kasabyan plays Haley with a satisfyingly savage swagger.

The unfortunate weakness of the production is that the most important character, Leigh, is ultimately impossible to decipher. It’s too hard to tell what part of her has a bigger influence on the world around her—her vulnerability or her opportunism. The fun of not knowing where the plane is going to crash is compromised when the crash is so gnarly that you can’t recover the black box.

Even so, ArtsWest is really pushing back against the perception that theatre isn’t powerful or relevant to today's sensibility. Really Really hits hard, and hits home.

Really Really plays January 21 – February 14, 2016 at ArtsWest Theatre (4711 California Ave. SW Seattle, WA 98116), Wednesdays – Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 3:00pm. Tickets (ranging from $17 - $37.50) are on sale now and may be purchased online at www.artswest.org, by phone at 206.938.0339, or at the box office.