Rorschach Theatre's production of A Bright Room Called Day does an excellent job of bringing on the tension.

Sometimes it's during a young woman's vehement, Reagan-hating scenes set in the early 1980s. In her fervent state of alarm and outrage, she would be just as at home standing in front of the White House today, railing against the current adminstration.

Sometimes it's in watching the breakdown of one character, a tortured homosexual man (Alexander Strain), so glib before his fall, but eventually driven first to thoughts of suicide after being harassed by Nazi officials, and finally to a resigned but guilt-laden self-preservation instinct that keeps him from shooting Adolph Hitler when he meets him by chance in a movie theatre.

And if all else fails, well, the Devil himself shows up, too.

Truly, a lot is going on in this play, written by Tony Kushner (Angels in America), which focuses on a group of Communist-leaning intellectuals who observe and sometimes fight Hitler's rise to power. The plot's progression is interrupted by vingettes starring the aforementioned 80s liberal known as Zillah (Elizabeth Chomko), which Rorschach sets to video on a large screen hanging above the set. Characters are plentiful, scenes are frequently brief but awfully numerous, and the play's occasional doses of the surreal (the devil's appearance, a strange phantom-like visitor that haunts the apartment) can sometimes confuse rather than provoke. But overall, it is a play of thoughtful character studies and intriguing moral conflicts, and above all an impressive bit of staging and performance on Rorschach's part.

At the play's center is Agnes Eggling (Lindsay Allen), a writer/actress who ends up funneling her talents into support of the Communist party until the cost becomes too high. Allen has it all here -- a sense of wide-eyed innocence and devotion fueled by a jittery energy, that is later plagued by strain as things become more complicated and dangerous for her and her friends.

She is joined by a group of seasoned supporting performers. Grady Weatherford is strong as her lover Husz, an exiled Hungarian cinematographer. Wry and comical at first, Husz later becomes possessed by an uncontainable rage that Weatherford embodies nicely. There is the subtle Katie Atkinson, a party devotee, who handles her weighty scenes with ease while lightening things up with a witty, bantering rapport with her partner in Communist crime (Matt Dunphy). And above all, there is Chomko, who is absolutely on fire as the punky Zillah -- her anger is palpable, but there is an undercurrent of irony and an almost unconscious sex appeal there as well.

Rorschach's staging is smart as usual. The video/live theatre juxtaposition was used once already this season, to anticlimatic effect in Signature Theatre's The Sex Habits of American Women. In this production, we learn that bigger is better - the large screen lets us really tap into Chomko's performance, and ironic touches such as a dancing jazz sequence set to shots of Hitler really register. The set has other surprises, such as a fireplace that makes way to allow the Devil (Dunphy again, here a bit too shrill) a splash of an entrance. Even just a view in the corner of the well-lit shadow of a stranger creeping outside the window packs a visual punch. For Rorschach, the devil is never in the details; we could maybe stand to lose that over-the-top devil, but the right details are all in place.

A Bright Room Called Day runs through May 21 at the Sanctuary Theatre in Columbia Heights. Tickets are available on Rorschach's web site.