On Theater:

Comedy and tragedy, it is said, are two sides of the same coin, a coin that playwright Julie Marie Myatt flips frequently and with startling abandon in her new play, “The Happy Ones,” currently receiving its world premiere at South Coast Repertory.

When a horrific accident robs him of his family, Garden Grove appliance store owner Walter Wells embarks on a torturous uphill struggle to regain his sense of perspective (yes, Myatt has set her story in Orange County, circa 1975).

This is Myatt’s second play to be produced at South Coast Repertory, the first being “My Wandering Boy” two years ago. While that one was enjoyable, “The Happy Ones” is unforgettable, a comedic drama calculated to alter your emotional equilibrium.

Martin Benson’s direction has touched, and torn at, the heart on many a previous occasion. Here the veteran craftsman brings Myatt’s poignant yet strangely comedic work to pulsating life with a cast of four performers whose work will remain with you long after you leave the theater.

Walter — an extraordinary performance by Raphael Sbarge — is shattered by the deaths of his wife and two children, killed by a young Vietnamese man with limited driving experience going the wrong way on a freeway.

Myatt’s play focuses on his road to recovery from that consuming grief, a winding and nearly unnavigable road.

This process is abetted (or, more accurately, hindered) by a pair of well-meaning friends, Gary (Geoffrey Lower), a hard-drinking minister, and his party-hearty girlfriend Mary-Ellen (Nike Doukas), who endeavor to quicken their friend’s grief-shedding pace.

Ironically, the largest share of comfort comes from Bao (Greg Watanabe), the Vietnamese man responsible for the tragedy, who attaches himself to a reluctant Walter as a virtual servant in an awkward attempt to make amends.

It turns out that these two men have more in common than Walter realizes. Sbarge runs the emotional gamut with soul-chilling alacrity in an aching portrayal of abject agony, emphatically rejecting attempts at cheerful conviviality.

His frustration is magnified by a continually ringing work phone and a young prankster inquiring about “Prince Albert in a can.”