Everyone has artistic obsessions. For most college kids in the age of the Internet, the endless search for the perfect live bootleg of a favorite song offers welcome procrastination from life’s responsibilities. Why one becomes so obsessed with certain artists and devotes hours to the pursuit of their music is a complicated affair to dissect. But Mendy, one of the characters in Terrence McNally’s The Lisbon Traviata, offers some insight when he explains his obsession with Maria Callas: “Opera doesn’t reject me, the real world does.”

In The Lisbon Traviata, excessive enjoyment of opera represents an escape from the mediocrity of life into the magnificence of art. The masterful opera singer Maria Callas is the divine artistic ideal, offering deliverance to the unfulfilled characters. Callas provides them with insight into the finer points of existence.

So intertwined are the characters’ views of opera and existence that an irate Mendy at one point yells, “I’m not surprised you don’t like opera, people like you don’t like life!”

The backdrop for the play’s exploration of life and art is the relationship between the devoted fans, Mendy and Stephen. Though they are long-time friends, Stephen doesn’t return Mendy’s romantic inclinations, and he is instead devoted to a boyfriend who refuses to exhibit faithfulness to Stephen or his artistic interests.

Anyone who has been on the front lines of an emotionally wrenching romantic failure will find themselves reliving the painful reality of it in this play. The tragedy of The Lisbon Traviata is that love, though beautiful, is not always true. Unlike the awe-inspiring evocations of Callas’ voice, relationships will inevitably fall short of the ideal.

The actor portraying Stephen has the most challenging role in the show; he must make the audience believe that the collected, balanced man of the first act transforms into the hysterical, irrational lover of the second.

Peter A. Carey does a serviceable job with the role in the first act but is almost eclipsed by the delightfully entertaining Neil A. Casey as Mendy. By the second act, though, Carey comes into his own, transporting the audience into the pain of his present situation.

Bill Mootos as Stephen’s lover, Mike, finds his most touching, believable moments as the tender lover of the younger Paul, sensitively played by Jason Schuchman.

Eric Engel’s direction deftly navigates the difficulties of a thrust stage and takes full advantage of its benefits. His direction is perfectly complemented by Brynna Bloomfield’s set, which successfully creates two contrasting and realistic apartments.

McNally’s play lacks a feel-good ending—it is, in fact, not a feel-good piece. Rather, McNally has constructed a provocative play about the pain of living in a world where the greatest joy is derived from that which is not real. Though art may be transcendant, it cannot alone fulfill one’s existence: Those who insist on escaping the grittiness of life come eventually to recognize the agonizing depth of the divide.

theater

The Lisbon Traviata

Written by Terrence McNally

Directed by Eric Engel

Starring Peter A. Carey and Neil A. Casey

At The Lyric Stage Company of Boston

Through March 9