(Editor's note: This story has been updated.)

Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire is best known for audacious, quirky humor. In his early Off-Broadway works - "Kimberly Akimbo" and "Fuddy Meers" -  Abaire impressed many with his inventive whimsy. Less charitable theatergoers found him fluffy and overly cute.

But Abaire did an about-face with "Rabbit Hole," winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. Now running at The Stagecrafters Theater, this somber drama tackles the problem of grief and suffering as Becca and Howie, a well-off suburban couple, struggle to come to terms with the death of Danny, their four-year-old son.

A car struck Danny when he chased the family dog into the street. Eight months after his death, the grieving parents can find no peace. The tragedy is a lingering curse that informs their every thought and action.

Becca is the central character. Since the death, she’s lost interest in friends, house and husband. Olivia Gendron's performance helps carry the show. She does not overplay Becca's anger in lashing out at those around her. Becca has the occasional outburst. More commonly, Gendron indirectly expresses the character's rage with facial expressions, stage movement and sarcastic asides drained of all emotion.

Brian Scott Campbell is compelling as Howie, the other beleaguered parent. Howie leads a more active life, out in the world, holding down a job, attending support groups. Yet you see his grief, too, is unresolved; on separate occasions, he explodes in anger. Watching the Stagecrafters production is like watching the early stages of a fireworks show. Director Suki wants you to wonder, who is best handling this tragedy?

Thanks to Timothy Bruno, the set design of the family’s suburban home is so vivid it becomes a character. But it is the stairway leading to Danny's old bedroom, and the overhanging loft on the rear wall, that commands your attention. The bedroom loft is full of color, with its resplendent bedspread full of Danny's stuffed animals and toys. In this way, Danny is a ghostly presence. 

Amid unrelenting bereavement, David Lindsay-Abaire, the playwright who created outlandish characters full of oddball wit, inserts humorous touches that give the play a measure of comic relief.

Izzy is Becca's younger sister. She is lost and zany, and Janine Silano plays the role with zest. Izzy tells a story about sucker punching another woman in a barroom brawl. It segues to a discovery: Izzy is pregnant, and this news upsets Becca in an unaccountable way.

Equally, Nat (Bobbi Block) has a humorous edge. As Becca's mother, she is comically oblivious about the jarring effect she has on her daughter. Yet Nat also delivers a sage trusim about grieving that helps Becca deal with her malaise.

Nihilism

"Rabbit Hole" is full of characters we hear about but never meet. Rick and Debbie are the couple's estranged friends; Augie is Izzy's lover; Arthur is a brother, a heroin addict who committed suicide at age 30; Reema is Becca's waitress friend who spotted Howie holding hands with an unknown woman in the diner.

Taz is the family dog, but you only hear him bark. And, of course, there is ghostly Danny. Becca rarely leaves the house because she has nowhere to go. She lives inside a phantasmagoric world in which she feels no sense of belonging.

I suppose nothing can match the death of a child in underscoring the nihilistic viewpoint that life is senseless. You know little about Becca and Howie apart from their immediate, grieving presence. In Becca's case, you sense that only being a loving mother had saved her from nihilistic despair.

The final character is Jason (Peyton Carson), a high school senior who happened to drive down the wrong street at the wrong time. Jason writes science fiction. Enraptured by the "rabbit hole" world of quantum physics, he argues for the existence of a parallel universe in which another version of Becca can be found. 

Becca has not lost her sardonic humor: "I hope that Becca is happier than this one." 

"Rabbit Hole" will run through April 27. Tickets are available at 215-247-9913 or at thestagecrafters.org, The Stagecrafters Theater is at 8130 Germantown Ave.