Jen Silverman’s wild and wonderful take on Brontë-style gothic drama is currently onstage in a riotous new production at the Theatre Centre Incubator. Directed with a bold voice and a light touch by Bryn Kennedy, The Moors is a triumph that dashes expectations at every turn.

Silverman’s text is anarchic and inventive while faithfully capturing, and playing with, the conventions of its Victorian style. Standard restraints of stage work like actors in multiple roles, sets serving multiple purposes, and time skipping for plot convenience are embraced as features rather than bugs in Silverman’s subtly askew manor. Anachronistic touches in the costumes (Madeline Ius) and styling prioritize vibes over authenticity, communicating more to the audience about this world and these people than a higher budget and months of research could have.

The non-literal costuming of Jack Copland and Heeyun Park’s characters in particular, along with beautifully subtle physical performances, unlocks one of the play’s strongest threads and lets it breathe without distraction. At every turn, Kennedy chooses to trust her text, her performers, and her audience rather than hold our hands too tightly through Silverman’s twisted tale.

Absurdity and honesty inform each other to great effect as the six person cast skillfully walks a very thin tonal tightrope, never slipping into silliness or veering too self-serious. The play’s heavy themes and purposeful atmospheric dreariness are leavened by Erin Humphry’s acerbic wit and Lindsey Middleton’s charming wildness. Copland’s brilliant performance as The Mastiff is perfectly pitched at an invented intersection of literal and figurative, romantically philosophizing and absentmindedly drooling through Silverman’s humane deconstruction of predatory masculinity.

The Moors is high-minded low-brow literary profanity as deliciously ridiculous as it is profoundly moving. It’s fabulous programming by Riot King Art Market and expert level work from the whole company. Get yourself to the Theatre Centre by April 19th.