Rorschach's back, and in rare form.

After a nearly year-long absence from the theater scene when it lost its performance space, the small but ambitious theater company is returning with a jam-packed schedule stuffed with three works running in July, including a four-part serial. If its first offering, a sexy and meditative staging of the world premiere This Storm Is What We Call Progress is an indication of things to come, we're in for an exciting summer.

It turns out that Kabbalah-influenced mysticism makes for mighty meaty material for playwright Jason Grote. This Storm's story involves three people - a mysterious Woman With Silver Skin (Rena Cherry Brown) who has a powerful hold over her apprentice Lily (Sara Barker), and Adam, a struggling Jewish actor (Karl Miller) who gets swept up into their machinations. Adam's father went mad when he began exploring the kind of magic Lily and the Woman seem to be delving into, and he begins to wonder whether he's doing the same.

The impact of This Storm owes much to the seamless performance of Karl Miller. His take on the character is almost jarringly naturalistic, completely without affect. Miller takes what could have been a ranting monologue in worse hands (the soliloquy skewers everything from Woody Allen to Tel Aviv night clubs to NoVa rednecks) and turns it into a compelling statement on modern Jewish culture rather than acting as a mouthpiece for the playwright. His range is also apparent when he takes on the persona of "Adam The Actor"; voice-overs of Adam's recordings of his one-man show "American Shylock" take on an almost effortless grandeur. Sara Barker is a sensual match for him, equally effective as her character begins to break down from the strain of what she and Adam put each other through. Brown remains an evocative, eerie presence throughout.

Rorschach's temporary new digs are in a basement theater in the Georgetown campus's Davis Center for The Performing Arts, and director Jenny McConnell Frederick transforms the small stage into both a cluttered, claustrophobic bedroom with ominous, jagged-edged windows and a dusty, bare recording studio. Staging to accommodate the U-shaped seating, though, makes the audience experience a bit lacking for those on the sides of the action. Artful production touches include the spotlighted floor highlighting the poetic scene titles and creepy, melting masks covering the faces of strangers - the masks help lead to more than one moment in the show that is genuinely scary, an emotion not always easily articulated in live theater.

For the non-Madonna/Ashton Kutcher set, the Kabbalah may not seem like the first thing to pick up for exploration, but Grote's extensive research sure makes it sound like there's some fascinating substance there, at least from a historical and cultural standpoint. Wrapping everything up in an atmosphere of forgotten languages, secret spells and an entire new way of seeing reality grounds everything much more in artistic experience than religion - and it sure makes for compelling theater.

This Storm Is What We Call Progress runs through July 20 at the Davis Performing Arts Center. Tickets are available online.