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Approaching the thorny passage into middle age, the characters in Melissa James Gibson's play are anxiously waiting for someone to send in the clowns. They grapple with missed opportunities and the specter of mortality, driven by confusion and sadness, yearning for ways to make the remainder of their lives more joyous and meaningful. Director Daniel Aukin, who helmed the play's 2009 premiere at New York's Playwrights Horizon, leads a brilliant ensemble, including three members of the original cast. The alternately funny and melancholy work plays out like a wistful 21st-century distillation of Chekhovian hope and longing.

Among the playwright's inventive dramatic devices is the shrewd use of wordplay and nonsequiturs to capture the cadences of everyday speech and to reflect on our struggles to assimilate our scattered dreams. The first scene suggests a cross between a first-rate sitcom and a riff on vintage Edward Albee, as a gathering of friends plays a potentially reckless party game. As the characters are introduced and a pivotal plot conflict eventually unfolds, the stage is set for cathartic soul-baring and a profoundly moving climax.

A married couple (Eisa Davis as singer-songwriter Marrell and Darren Pettie as her spouse, Tom, a cabinetmaker) copes with a baby suffering from a sleeping problem, plus the realization that their romantic spark is all but extinguished. Their close friend Jane (Saffron Burrows) is trying to come to terms with the death of her husband a year prior, which left her with a young daughter to raise by herself. Alan (Glenn Fitzgerald), the group's flippantly funny gay pal, makes a living as a mnemonist (a person with uncanny memory skills). He's bored with displaying his unique abilities on television as a glorified sideshow freak. Introduced by Marrell as a potential love match for Jane is jet-setting French doctor Jean-Pierre (Gilles Marini), a devil-may-care bisexual seemingly unaffected by the middle-age craziness afflicting the others. When Jane and Tom give in to their impulse to indulge in an adulterous fling, the stage is set for myriad confrontations.

Aukin draws pitch-perfect performances, making the idiosyncratic rhythms of Gibson's dialogue ring true and illuminating the Pandora's box of emotions evident in the subtext. Burrows is particularly affecting, offering a fully rounded portrait of despair and resiliency, lending a deep resonance to Jane's tribulations. Davis' brittle portrayal of quick-witted Marrell is likewise nuanced, and Pettie skillfully segues between the attractive and contemptible sides of Tom's behavior. Fitzgerald gets the funniest lines and runs with them, while deftly transitioning to his character's more somber side. Marini excels as the amused new member of this coterie, giving us a smart outside perspective on the peculiar group dynamics.

Louisa Thompson's sprawling scenic design is wondrous. Fluid and richly detailed, it smartly suggests the emotional clutter of the characters' psyches and their posh materialistic values. Matt Frey's superbly textured lighting and Peter Eldridge's original music eloquently support the story's shifting emotional landscape.

Presented by Center Theatre Group at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Aug. 7-28. Tue.-Wed. & Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 1 & 6:30 p.m. Also Mon., 8 p.m., Aug. 22. (213) 628-2772. www.centertheatregroup.org.