With its astronomic stakes, operatic violence, and cinematic flourishes, Corktown is in essence a mob movie played out on the Purple Rose Theatre stage. Yet the world-premiere production of this Michael Brian Ogden script is notable for its complex and engaging performances as well as its innovative application of live-theater magic to the genre. Director Guy Sanville plays on viewers' familiarity with these brutal life-and-death stories while simultaneously reveling in the novelty of bringing an audience so close to something so dangerous and — in most cases — foreign.

The play is set in the Detroit apartment of Joey (Matthew David), an enforcer for the Irish mob. Set designer Bartley H. Bauer provides an ominous letterbox view of a remodeled-over domicile in a shabby building; even the water damage tainting its posh faux-finish paint job has a sinister quality. The tone is borne out in the terrible scope of Danna Segrest's properties, which quickly spell out Joey's exact role in the organization — in polite company, he might be called a "cleaner." In the disarming opening scene, Joey and longtime friend and colleague Laurence (Ogden) casually talk shop, quickly submerging the viewer into a world of unspeakable violence that's accepted as strictly business. The juxtaposition of their humdrum middle-management world view with the carnage in which they are steeped (further contrasted by the relatively pristine white coveralls of Christianne Myers's costume design) is a terrific entry point for a production insistent that gangland-style executions must coexist with basic human connection.