If you want to feel better about a world rent with cultural warfare and lousy weather, you could do worse than devote two hours and a bit to "When January Feels Like Summer" by Cori Thomas, now enjoying its crisply staged, marvelously acted world premiere at City Theatre.

There, I've ruined the surprise. Some of this unusual play's effect depends on its grim setting and exotic characters, which might be heading toward a tragic cataclysm. While laughing, I braced myself for the worse.

But that's what's so wonderful about Ms. Thomas' play -- that out of unusual materials and dodgy circumstances she weaves a tale of redemption that goes right to the heart of the American promise of renewal. How could I write about this transformative experience without saying it brought tears to my eyes?

Anne Mundell's setting is a realistic, forbidding New York subway platform. There's one of those ubiquitous news and candy stands, run by Indian immigrants. And on occasion the subway fades away for scenes in apartments or at a hospital bedside.

In this unpromising urban space we first meet two street-talking young black men, roughly 17 and 20. Then we meet the mature Indian woman and her younger brother who run the newsstand, and finally a mature black man, a garbage collector.

For a while, scenes alternate between the two young men and the two Indians. We discover their parallel issues of love, sex and identity. Eventually their stories intersect, resulting not in cataclysm but fresh possibility, and we recall that in that throbbing city the subway is a great democratic leveler and the newsstand an engine of economic improvement.

The play is all about its characters and how we discover our common humanity, even as the characters do the same. It's a true ensemble, and you'd no sooner identify one character as central than another would question your judgment.

Nirmala is the mature Indian woman whose unloved and unloving husband lies in a vegetative state in a hospital. Gita Reddy plays her with exquisite delicacy, every facial nuance and tilt of her wrist suggesting suppressed emotion.

Most remarkable is her clever brother, Ishan, who soon changes his name and much else, played by Debargo Sanyal with cut crystal comic dash. It's a florid performance thoroughly under control, a master class in how to milk a pause. Eventually, Ishan's brittle comedy deepens into an encounter both astonishing and touching, presided over by the Hindu god Ganesh, lord of the removal of obstacles.

Joshua Elijah Reese plays Devaun, the young black man who is foolish, enthusiastic and not so dumb as he seems. A Pittsburgher, Mr. Reese has given us many fine performances but never one with more physical extravagance and emotional joy and daring.

He is ably supported by a younger Pittsburgher, Carter Redwood, who plays his friend, Jeron. Initially the brighter -- he can even unsnarl Devaun's malapropisms -- he eventually needs tutelage on the finer points of how to approach a girl.

Last but far from least is Joe, the older man, given kindly substance, a low center of gravity and sneaky charisma by John Marshall Jones.

Playwright Thomas gets most of her comedy from character, but she can also craft a funny line. Most impressively, her slowly accumulating plot develops parallels that refract and multiply meanings.

Chuck Patterson directs with a great sense of balance, playing these sometimes exotic characters against each other, letting us discover the humanity that unites both them and us. Costumes, lights and sound all provide vivid enhancement.

For a brand new play, "January" is impressively complete and self-assured. Still, there are a few loose ends -- the dying husband's insurance policy, for one. The language can be raw, such as a rant using the universal expletive as every possible part of speech. But it's no more than you'd hear on a New York subway platform or Pittsburgh street.

The play's title suggests weather out of whack, or cold (emotions?) giving way to warm, or bitter to sweet. We learn that the exotic is normal, or perhaps vice versa. Sweet without being sugary, "January" turns out to be about the mysterious varieties of love.

First Published: April 1, 2010, 8:00 a.m.