The latest mystery to hit the boards at Weathervane Playhouse, a Knight Arts grantee, is Emlyn Williams’ “Night Must Fall.” This one is not a murder mystery where all the attention is on the whodunit aspect of drama, nor is it really a psychological thriller, where you’re wondering what kind of mental games are going on.

This one is more in the psychological chiller vein. The plot is a kind of metaphorical time bomb waiting to wreak havoc on the characters – and the audience. We are all sufficiently inundated by real-life headlines about seemingly innocent-looking and -acting people exploding their inner stresses and shattering the lives of others to get what’s at stake in this play.

The setting is a seemingly harmless country cottage where a lonely but domineering widow, Mrs. Bramson (played by Jo McGarvey) is surrounded by an equally lonely but forlorn and unhappy Olivia Grayne (played by Jennifer Hayek), plus a maid, groundskeeper, nurse and housekeeper (actress Meg Hopp is hysterically funny in the role). The place has its angst – the characters don’t seem to a person to really care about one another.

Jonathan Riese as Dan and Jo McGarvey as Mrs. Bramson in “Night Must Fall.” Photo courtesy of Weathervane Playhouse

Into the scene comes Dan, the only character clearly without a last name (and thus a kind of Everyman sort of being) and a foggy past that never clearly gets explained. He charms everyone pretty much. Presumably he’s had an affair with Dora, the maid, who is supposedly pregnant by him, but who actually functions in the plot as a device to get him in the door.

Mrs. Bramson wants attention, and thus feigns various illnesses and weaknesses of health. Dan flatters her, babies her neuroses, so much so that she ceases to be the head of household who holds accountable and in check those beneath her in station.

A murder has happened at the end of the property in a rubbish pile that Mrs. Bramson complains about uselessly to authorities. Everyone is upset, and theories abound about who would (not could) have done such a thing.

The irony in the plot is that Dan is in fact the only recent unknown variable in all their lives, yet no one save for Olivia even ventures to think it might be him (and even then she’s kind of taken with the idea of Dan as the vehicle of mayhem).

Jonathan Riese as Dan and Jennifer Hayek as Olivia Grayne in “Night Must Fall.” Photo courtesy of Weathervane Playhouse

The chill of the narrative comes through the main characters – Mrs. Bramson, who seemingly willingly allows herself to be duped and done in (which actress McGarvey portrays with great skill as she goes from emotionally hard to soft to distracted and ultimately terrified); Olivia, who slides from being practically a non-entity into a woman seduced by lethal emotions she didn’t know she had (which actress Hayek renders clearly before the audience’s eyes); and Dan, the seeming rustic with a keen sense of humor, as well as the even archer bent toward psychological manipulation, with an eye toward murder.

It’s a good play, though it has its problems. For one, Dora, the pregnant maid, is all but forgotten, even though she still works there. Even she doesn’t seem to mind that the man who knocked her up doesn’t pay her any notice. Inspector Belsize (Thom Stephan) seems to know Dan is the murderer, but acts all ineffective as a policeman, thus relegating his character to a kind of onstage foreshadowing presence.

Those kinds of things make the drama seem to slow down. You wait for loose ends to get tied up or catalysts of action to spur the drama ahead – and they don’t happen. In a way, the script kind of gets in the way of the drama, and that’s too bad, for the actors work extremely hard to keep you unsettled, even when you can see it coming.

For a special treat, go see the play and watch how they handle the bows at the end. Awesome.

“Night Must Fall” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, 8 p.m. on Friday-Saturday, and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday through October 27 at Weathervane Playhouse, 1301 Weathervane Lane, Akron; 330-836-2626; www.weathervaneplayhouse.com. Tickets are $21.