The Salem Repertory Theatre is opening its new season with the dramatic thriller Mauritius. Put lightly, it is a story of the dark side of stamp collecting. Put strongly, it is what happens when suffering, greed, selfishness and lies slam together over one rare treasure. And put honestly, it is brilliant.

When Jackie and Mary’s mother dies, the valuable stamp collection she leaves behind represent different things to each woman. For Mary, they are a legacy of the only good part of her childhood, possibly her life. She wants to keep them. For Jackie, who has suffered for years in place of her long absent sister, they represent a way out of misery. Add a dangerous stamp collector and two philatelists of questionable motives, and you have the rough, thrilling ride of Mauritius.

Set designer Alan Schwanke achieves wonderfully detailed decay on the stage. The set has a peculiar moldering beauty, with plaster falling from the ceiling and smashed file cabinets. It manages to speak as clearly as the actors of loss and need. It is one of the rare times the Salem Rep has tackled a play needing more than one background, and they accomplished the interchange brilliantly with dim-light transitions of multi purpose scenery.

Director Michael Phillips oversees a brilliant cast. Jeffrey Gilpin is Dennis, a quickly speaking young man of shifting dependability and unreliable compassion. Michael Swanson is the stamp expert Philip, a man of limited dialog and revealing silences. His subtle facial reactions to the abuse other characters throw at him are the solid keystones of his performance. Doren Elias plays Sterling, the wealthy collector. Sterling provides the evil that makes all the other character’s behavior tolerable by comparison. Elias is utterly terrifying, portraying a perfect villain without ever becoming cartoonish.

KB Mercer does an incredible job making the character of Mary complex. Mary is cold, arrogant and false, beginning every polite insult with “I‘m sorry, but...” Mercer allows all those traits to show, and then adds a humanity with gentility and poise. This makes her bitter choices all the more ugly.

Erika Phillips leads the cast as Jackie. Jackie deserves the stamp collection slightly more than her sister, but not because of her likeable personality. Often seen clutching the book of stamps as if it were a shield, Phillips’s Jackie has all the echoes of an abused child; quelled eruptive rage, and treating everyone she meets as a potential threat. And rightly so. These are people too look out for.

A remarkably brave aspect of this play is that none of the characters are good people, at least not fiction “good”. You’ll try to find a hero to ride with through the perils of Mauritius; you may expect a heart of gold to appear from hiding, but you won‘t find it in these characters. It takes all they have to look out for themselves, and they don’t have any spare space to carry you along. Luckily, the pull of the play is so strong, the story so exciting and the actors so vivid, you’ll be glad to go, even if it is alone.

Mauritius runs at Salem Red through October 25. For tickets call 503 302 8907, or buy online at www.salemrep.org