`Simpatico' is masterful in its deception.

• Position: LIVING

Byline: Paul Kolas

COLUMN: THEATER REVIEW

WHITINSVILLE - Sam Shepard's "Simpatico" overflows with the stench of deception, moral depravity and good old-fashioned greed. Its characters circle around each other like boxers looking for a moment of opportunity to exploit an advantage, at times throwing verbal punches with premeditated savagery.

You could practically smell the boozy fumes of Vincent T. Webb's (Michael Carr) bourbon permeating through the Singh Performance Center in Whitinsville on Wednesday evening, in 4th Wall Stage Company's preview performance of "Simpatico," prior to its official opening this weekend.

And what a preview it was, another scintillating demonstration that Frank Bartucca's theater company continues to make good on its vow to bring challenging, unconventional theater to Central Massachusetts. And to do it justice once again, with director Barbara Guertin navigating a superb cast perceptively through the concentric, jabbing rhythms of Shepard's shadowy world.

The play opens in Cucamonga, Calif., in a dumpy apartment strewn with dirty clothes and half empty whiskey bottles. Vinnie has asked an old friend, Carter (Sean Stanco), to fly out from Lexington, Ky., to help him out of a jam. He tells Carter that a woman, Cecilia (Jourdan Spruill), he met at a local watering hole got him thrown in jail for trespassing, invasion of privacy and harassment.

Or did she? And is Vinnie really a detective? What Shepard does is to keep you initially in the dark about what is really going on here, using his swirling dialogue to artfully, teasingly reveal the facts one step at a time. Fifteen years earlier, Carter and Vinnie made money at the race track by swapping out horses and betting on the long shots. When the racing commissioner, Simms (Ed Savage), uncovered the scam, he threatened to expose Vinnie and Carter, and revoke their racing permits.

With delectable perversity, Vinnie had his wife, Rosie (Cindy Bell), lure Simms into a compromising position, take photos of the two "in flagrante delicto," and use them to keep Simms quiet. Vinnie kept the photos in a shoe box, and Carter ran off with Rosie to Lexington, where he became a horse breeder, living the high life with Rosie and their kids. Now the past has come back to haunt Carter, even though he's been paying both Vinnie and Simms blackmail money to keep the past at bay.

How it all plays out is a serpentine reversal of fortune that the cast enacts with memorable...