Its Streets Are Paved With Drama There's this funny thing that can occur when you're watching a play, a development in that hazy somewhere between suspension of, and stymieing of, disbelief. It happens when enough of a world has been created onstage so that you care about it and the people who inhabit it - and then something goes awry, stops short or simply parts ways with your own sensibilities, so that you feel that an injustice has been done to that world by the same people who made you care about it in the first place. Excitement withers, followed by creeping frustration. That was my arc at the Cherry Lane Theater on Tuesday evening, the opening night of Mando Alvarado's new drama, "Basilica." Presented by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater and directed by Jerry Ruiz, this two-hour production occupies a tightly bounded universe in San Juan, Tex.: home, bar, church. So as to avoid spoilers, and also because this is the least engaging part of the whole shebang, suffice it to say that the narrative is driven by the return of a hometown boy, Gil (Alfredo Narciso), who is all grown up and has become a priest. His presence stirs up old, hurtful events for Lela Garza (Selenis Leyva) and her husband, Joe (Felix Solis), which in turn stir up new, hurtful events. Drama yields melodrama. Mr. Alvarado's larger subject is San Juan itself, and the ways a small town both defines and destroys its inhabitants. The play, though set in the present, also exists out of time. Don't you think we all wanted something different? Joe asks his son, Ray (Jake Cannavale), by way of explaining that Ray is going to have to abandon his dream of going to college out of state, just as Joe abandoned his football dreams. You don't think I wanted that? But that didn't happen. And this is what I got. And I dealt with it. Joe, as you might gather, is something of a blunt instrument. He's a charmer and a bully, a dichotomy that could quickly grow tiresome in many actors" hands. But Mr. Solis, a veteran of the LAByrinth Theater Company, brings Joe to marvelous life, ranging restlessly through his character's limitations so as to tease out their prickly contours. More happily still, Mr. Solis isn't alone. All five adult actors are a pleasure throughout "Basilica." (In his stage debut, the charismatic Mr. Cannavale - the son of Bobby Cannavale - is still feeling his way into what it is to be onstage. And Yadira Guevara-Prip, who plays Joe and Lela's daughter, leans on cuteness a bit too much.) As Joe's sister, Rosal Colón telegraphs unhappiness and anger through her entire frame, her leg jackhammering relentlessly while she slumps on a stool at her grandfather's bar, which she now runs. Joe's friend and co-worker Cesar is a mild foil for the boisterous character played by Mr. Solis, but Bernardo Cubría keeps Cesar from being a mere placeholder. But the Big Themes underlined with a heavy pen in "Basilica" (Raul Abrego's streamlined set design is built around the outline of an imposing cross) drive us inexorably toward a string of climactic reveals and confrontations that sap the very intensity they are presumably meant to build. As everything comes undone, and the play's balance tips heavily from comedy to tragedy, its occupants don't become stranger or more complex. They simply become less fully human, reverting to types and symbols. And yet, and yet - these performers keep swimming upstream, toward something less easily definable. The play's final image is a doozy, one of extreme struggle. Likely to be futile, the effort is also utterly gripping. Basilica By Mando Alvarado; directed by Jerry Ruiz; sets by Raul Abrego; costumes by Carisa Kelly; lighting by Burke Brown; sound by Jane Shaw; fight director, David Anzuelo; stage manager, Michael Denis; production manager, Eugenia Furneaux. Presented by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, David Van Asselt, artistic director; Brian Long, managing director. At the Cherry Lane Theater, 38 Commerce Street; (866) 811-4111; rattlestick.org. WITH: Jake Cannavale (Ray Garza), Rosal Colón (Lou Helms-Garza), Bernardo Cubría (Cesar Cantu), Yadira Guevara-Prip (Jessica Garza), Selenis Leyva (Lela Garza), Alfredo Narciso (Father Gil) and Felix Solis (Joe Garza).