ORONO – You don’t have to be nuts to enjoy the latest theatrical offering from the University of Maine’s School of Performing Arts – but it helps. And if you are, you’ll have some company.

UMaine’s theatre department opens its season with a production of “Melancholy Play” by Sarah Ruhl. Directed by Rosalie Purvis, this gleefully strange farce runs through October 22 at Hauck Auditorium on the University of Maine campus in Orono. For more information, you can visit the SPA website here.

The play is an exploration of the complexities of emotion, of how the way we feel can impact not just ourselves, but the people around us. It’s a look at the delicacy of interpersonal dynamics and the manner in which those dynamics can shift and evolve as the ties that bind us grow tighter or looser … or just plain weirder.

It is also wildly funny, packed with absurdities that only accentuate the paean to emotionality that rests at its core. All of this brought to vivid, surreal life by a passionate young cast whose talent is second only to their fearlessness.