None Too Fragile’s current production of Martin McDonagh’s “Lonesome West” has got everything right – impeccable acting from the four person ensemble; a set that underlines the gritty reality of the characters’ harsh life in the western reaches of Ireland; a tumbling story of explosively fragile people; and focused direction from co-directors Alanna Romansky and Sean Derry (who also acts in the play).

The storyline follows closely two brothers, Valene (Andrew Narten) and Coleman (Sean Derry), who squabble over everything – from who left the top off a pen, whose turn it is to read a magazine, who’s eating whose crisps (chips), which one is stronger and the better fighter, as well as who has the bigger and better life. It doesn’t seem to be so much competition between them as it is envy, and that begs the comparison to another dangerous brotherly set, Cain and Abel.

As the play progresses, the two brothers get more and more destructive and violent. Coleman burns Valene’s religious figurine collection in Valene’s new stove (and the audience can see wisps of smoke floating through the theater and smell the burning plastic). Later, when Valene replaced them all and added still more, Coleman smashed them, along with firing away at the new stove with multiple shotgun blasts (again the audience gets to see the stove door fly off and the destruction of the figurines).

Toward the end of the play, it is to the point where they are holding rifles aimed at each other and wrestling on the floor and punching it out, all the time threatening to kill one another. It turns out for good reason. Valene confesses that he shoved a pen down the throat of Coleman’s girlfriend, causing her to ironically fall in love with the doctor who treated her. Coleman tops that one by letting Valene know he cut the ears off his dog; to prove it, he brings them out and shows the younger brother.

The sense of violence comes with the territory. There’s plenty of it where they live. As the play opens, Father Welsh is seeking help to fetch a suicide out of a lake. Welsh (played by Robert Branch) seemingly wallows in self-pity, especially over his self-perceived failure as a priest. He enumerates the growing dead in the area – many from suicide and some from murder, including, as it turns out later in the play, Coleman killing his own father because the man made a snarly remark about his haircut. Coleman seemed to think that reason enough, as did his brother. Neither seemed all that upset that he was gone.

By play’s end, Father Welsh kills himself, an irony borne out by his frequent recitation that suicides go to hell. His death ruins the really non-chance of Girleen (played by Jenny Sherman) to find a man in this bleak place, for in one scene she comes on pretty strong to Welsh.

Andrew Narten, Jenny Sherman, and Robert Branch, in “Lonesome West.” Photo via Cleveland.com

The play ends in a shaky peace. The brothers agree they like to fight each other. One gets the feeling, as much as these two seem to despise one another, they are going to be together for life. They like their miserable existence in an ironic way.

Actors Derry and Narten bring out the ironic dimensions of their characters. In watching them, you get the sense that they are enjoying the jabs at each other’s character. The violent scenes, with them fighting and threatening death, are played to the hilt, thereby pushing the mood of death and danger that defines this place. They are fun to watch as well, for they convey the ironic, brutal humor that comes from outlandish boasts, postures and brotherly bitchiness.

Branch captures the essence of Father Welsh – a learned and seemingly reasonable man unable to intellectually and emotionally grasp the harsh realities of a sinful world. Sherman does right by Girleen, playing her as a savvy girl growing rapidly into adulthood but wanting more than she has been getting from life.

All None Too Fragile’s productions are worth the trip to the theater. They are consistently good. This one, though, has it all. “Lonesome West” is a tightly woven cluster of high-quality production values.

Martin McDonagh’s “Lonesome West” is being performed at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays and 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays through February 28 at None Too Fragile Theatre in Pub Bricco, 1835 Merriman Rd., Akron; 330-671-4563; www.nonetoofragile.com. Tickets are $20 (or what you will).