Want to slice and dice self-obsession and count the many ways it shows up in contemporary urban and suburban America? Take in Eric Bogosian’s one-man play, “Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead,” being shown as None Too Fragile’s latest dramatic production.

Bogosian’s narrative plumbs the seedy and sordid thinking of several characters, all of whom reveal with every breath their convictions about the life they are living, mostly without true regard for anyone else (and even without awareness of others and their feelings). There’s the smarmy self-help person who urges people to release their inner child, only to discover some emotional babies should stay hidden away. There’s the drug addict taking up residence on the subway, terrorizing travelers in turn, but speculating on how he could unleash an epidemic if some unsuspecting person picks up his “molecule.” (It makes the idea of touching a subway railing or seat a scary notion). Then there’s the rich suburbanite going on and on, and on and on, about having the best barbeque grill in the world, as he concurrently shows a lack of interest in his wife and child from his fourth or fifth or whatever marriage.

Sean Derry in “Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead.” Photo courtesy of None Too Fragile

The list goes on, and Sean Derry, who is a consummate actor, defines these characters and inhabits their psychological disarray so that the audience knows all too clearly, make that much too clearly, what’s going on and what’s at stake. It’s all done in outlandish humor, though, for that’s the stuff of dark comedy. As an aside, at the performance we attended, during the short blackouts between scenes (and character changes), the audience could see Derry pacing, or tensing, or jumping up and down, as though tossing off the prior character and catching hold of the one to come.

The staging for the production worked incredibly well in this black box theater production. The first scene, which represents a character talking about the good old days of 50-60 years ago, when presumably the world was a much nicer and gentler place–that is, where everyone was straight and no one took drugs (right!)–was done through Derry being presented through backlighting and the audience seeing but his silhouette as he made his pitch for the wonders of uncritical social concern and thinking. It set up for what was to come amazingly well.

The rest of the performance was done through a simple set – maybe a chair for a doctor talking to his patient in the gentlest terms about what he would get for his $5,000 prescription drug, namely a devastating list of side effects (don’t we all know that well enough through TV commercials, if not in real life?); through use of a microphone for a stand-up comedy routine (and to save Derry’s voice through the hour-and-a-half performance); to a basic bare stage to allow the character to reveal himself without distraction.

Derry’s performance, and Bogosian’s play, are well worth the evening out.

Eric Bogosian’s “Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and Sunday and at  8 p.m. on Friday-Saturday, December 5-8 at None Too Fragile, 1841 Merriman Rd., Akron; 330-671-4563; www.nonetoofragile.com. Tickets are $20 (or pay what you can). There are no performances over Thanksgiving weekend.