Deepwater is a gripping, powerful mystery about a female detective trying to unravel the disappearance of a child over four years ago.

Psychological, philosophical and poetic, this new play by The Villains Theatre’s Dan Bray is a departure for the author of often comic, classically-derived plays like the popular super-hero Knight of the Bat series.

Set in Kempt Shore, N.S., the play opens with an experienced investigator, Questa (Liliona Quarmyne), returning to visit the mother of a lost child, May (Amy Reitsma).

Questa wants to go over the now cold case by pushing May to talk about her childhood, her career dreams, her marriage to fellow marine biologist Casper (Chris George) and motherhood, all in an effort to figure out what happened one cold day during a blizzard at a water-filled quarry.

Bray spent eight years struggling with but never giving up on his first full-length drama, and worked with dramaturge Jackie Torrens and director Burgandy Code to realize his suspenseful, multi-layered vision where sea life is a powerful metaphor.

In design and text, Deepwater is steeped in tales of the mating life (and death) of octopuses, deep sea anglerfish who make their own light, the ocean’s deep-sea hydrothermal vents and cold, mysterious, watery depths in general versus light.

Deepwater has a great dramatic arc that takes a police interview from a friendly, fairly light exchange deeper and deeper into the mysteries in both May’s and Questa’s lives, leading to a climax as Quarmyne beautifully brings her character to a highly convincing peak of pain.

The cast is very good and evenly matched. Amy Reitsma, in perhaps the most challenging role, builds a rich, did-she-or-didn’t-she character as the detective forces May through the trajectory of her life from an optimistic, brainy scientist to a stifled, distraught woman. (The highly believable, at-home birth scene via Reitsma’s very realistic grunts and screams leaves both the audience and Questa in awe.)

As a prolific writer of comedies, adaptations and a musical, Bray often engages in lively word play. Some of his good humour is present in the character of Casper, Amy’s goofy, likable partner who enjoys wordplay and likes to keep life light. Chris George nicely dissolves him over time from a whimsical, loving, well-adjusted human being into a less likable, fearful person unwilling to listen to his wife.

Deepwater is staged with the audience on three sides of a black square space and is rich in design with perforated hangings, MacKenzie Cornfield’s projections of sea creatures, beautifully focussed, thematic lighting by Vicky Williams and Katrin Whitehead’s unusual, blackened jumble of a set, a pile of domestic objects, that takes on deeper meaning at the play’s end.

The actors’ clothes, designed by Noella Murphy, and the set are smeared with a white pattern that can be sea foam or snow or barnacles. There is also the faintest imprint of a child’s hand on some of the clothing which is chilling.

Bray sets his audience up early with the idea that sometimes there are no answers, which is true to life, so the ending – while being a kind of release – is more poetic than a neat tie-up of all the threads.

Deepwater is a compelling portrait of the human heart under extreme duress, the heartlessness within the mating practices of octopuses and the quest for light and life within both human and oceanic species.

To get tickets for the live show or livestream go to: https://www.tickethalifax.com/events/149495380/deepwater

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