J. Mal McCree as Marcus.

There’s a kind of lilting elegance to the language of Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet, a powerful portrayal of one man’s coming of age, now being staged at Studio Theater.

Perhaps it’s the way Tarell Alvin McCrane’s Louisiana-set play seamlessly interweaves reality with young Marcus’ unsteady recollection of disturbing dreams he can’t quite remember accurately. There’s also the looming threat of a serious storm pulsing in the background. McCrane’s characters also speak not only to each other, but in casual address to the audience, announcing their stage directions and emotional state, a device that gives a kind of distancing, objective effect to their interactions.

Distancing efforts aside, Marcus is a work that still hits home emotionally. The titular character’s (J. Mal McCree) dreams are haunting for several reasons – their ambiguity, their ties to his mysterious father, their sense of danger and their homoerotic undertones. “Sweet,” in this work, is a euphemism for gay, and Marcus isn’t already grappling with his own homosexuality; he’s trying to come to grips with whether his father shared the same trait. As Marcus stumbles through his own awakening, looking for solace and release in an encounter with a charismatic, if somewhat menacing, new man in town (Lance Coadie Williams). But his actions have consequences, not only for his relationship with his best friend – the smitten Osha (Rachael Holmes) – but for himself and almost everyone around him as he goes digging deeper into his family’s history.