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Playwright David Lindsay Abaire, whose drama "Rabbit Hole" won the Pulitzer Prize a few years back, is once again taking us down some emotionally deep turf. And he couldn't have asked for a better company to turn his "Good People" into great theatre.

Margie from working class South Boston, known as Southie, is living proof that the American Dream is mostly hype. Under a cloud of bad luck and drowning in debt, her life is a never-ending struggle to stay afloat. Compounding her woes is the challenge of caring for a grownup daughter who's severely disabled. We first meet her in a symbolically apt place, next to a dumpster behind the Dollar Store where she learns that she's being laid off from her job as a cashier. Running out of lifelines, she's encouraged by a friend to look up an old boyfriend who escaped his Southie roots and became a doctor.

Initially awkward, their relationship is a tangle of pent-up resentment, denial and desperation. It all adds up to a huge emotional gulf that threatens to swallow them both. All the while, Lindsay-Abaire skillfully injects a fine-tuned sense of humor to balance the darkness with much needed light.

Meticulously plotted and designed, Daniel Sullivan's sensitive production yields multiple revelations. This is a play that'll prompt deep discussion about ourselves and our national identity.

The pitch perfect cast paints a reality that bristles with edgy truth. The brilliant Estelle Parsons is dead-on, supplying comic relief as Margie’s low-class landlady. Tate Donovan is sensational, oozing conflicted impulses as a man desperate to shed his Southie skin. His liberal wife, far more comfortable in her skin, is nicely played by Renee Elise Goldsberry with both passion and restraint. And Frances McDormand finds nuances in every syllable, delivering a mesmerizing performance as a plucky casualty of the culture wars.

"Good People" is successful on many levels. It's a cultural critique, engrossing soap opera and an enlightening chronicle of life in America's underbelly. Good plays entertain, but "Good People" is even better, the kind that makes you think and feel as well.