Tim Getman and Maya Brettell in The Nether at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Photo: Scott Suchman

“You are about to enter The Nether, a space that can be shaped entirely by your imagination, where you can be anything you want to be.”

This is the enticing opening message for interested users of www.thenether.org, an interactive website for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s production of The Nether, written by Jennifer Haley. As with any Woolly production, the audience engagement activities in the lobby provide an orientation for the play you are about to see. In the case of this online choose-your-own-adventure game, the opening statement encapsulates both the greatest strength and weakness of this production: The Nether can be entirely shaped by your imagination, which opens up limitless possibilities and makes reality disappointing in comparison.

A crime procedural set in the near future at its core, The Nether elegantly traces a mystery through the real world and its online equivalent, called the Nether. We learn that the Nether is comprised of a number of realms, some of which are educational or industrial and some of which are (unsurprisingly) pornographic. One of these realms is the Hideaway—operated by Mr. Sims (Edward Gero) and patronized by Mr. Doyle (Paul Vincent O’Connor)—which provides an idyllic, Victorian-style vacation retreat for inappropriate encounters between adult avatars and child avatars. Detective Morris (Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey) makes it her mission to find the creator of the Hideaway and shut it down. The chewy ethical question at the center of the play, however, haunts the detective: is the Hideaway illegal or wrong if nothing inappropriate is happening in “reality”?

No member of the ensemble embodies that central ethical question as much as Paul Vincent O’Connor, in a sensitive and heartbreaking performance as Doyle. Without spoiling too much of Haley’s masterfully crafted mystery, O’Connor brings a breathtaking believability to the complicated figure of Doyle. In Doyle’s final onstage moments, you might find yourself wiping away tears and wincing simultaneously—a testament to O’Connor’s impressive depth.

Shining alongside O’Connor are Edward Gero as Sims and his virtual counterpart Papa, and Maya Brettell as child avatar Iris. Gero, like O’Connor, does well interpreting the moral murkiness of the Hideaway such that the audience might be heard mumbling in surprised agreement after a number of his lines. Brettell, a young actress playing an even younger character, confidently embodies the disturbing precociousness of Iris with a glittering giggle that will send shivers down your spine.

As one might expect from a play about virtual reality, set and projections design are the center of this production. Projections designer Jared Mezzocchi and set designer Sibyl Wickersheimer make a good team, bringing Haley’s vivid Nether world to life and doing some storytelling of their own. Wickersheimer’s set begins as a claustrophobic interrogation room, placing a Plexiglas fourth wall between the performance and the audience, but then slowly peeling walls away as we venture deeper and deeper into the truth of the Hideaway. Using Wickersheimer’s walls as an open palette, Mezzocchi’s projections and videos help the set cleanly transition between the real and the virtual, and illustrate the emotional truth of the characters’ experience. Wicksheimer and Mezzochi impress with their ability to create a world simultaneously expressionistic and believable within the endless possibility of the Nether.

Though Mezzocchi, Wickersheimer, and director Shana Cooper admirably work together to create a cohesive vision of the Nether generally and the Hideaway specifically, one can’t help but leave the theater feeling unsatisfied by the limitations of reality. With characters describing the tantalizing sensations and unreal beauty of the Hideaway, it would be impossible for designers wrangling with actual material to match the delights and horrors one could imagine. It’s a juicy production problem for any theater company, but it unfortunately also makes you wonder how The Nether might fare as a film instead.

While the production might leave you imagining your own version of the Nether, that speaks to Jennifer Haley’s fascinating script. Regardless, Woolly Mammoth should be praised for tackling this disturbing piece, treating it with delicacy, and still leaving the audience wanting more. Perhaps that is an extension of the ethical quandary at The Nether’s center: if you leave the performance wanting to know more about the Nether, Jennifer Haley is indeed foretelling something very frightening about our future.

The Nether plays at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company through May 1. Tickets are available online