Bonding, splitting, fighting for life

Cancer cells can be ambitious little imperialists. So can the cancer-fighting researchers and the institutions that support them.

This is the provocative metaphor that informs Bob Clyman’s “The Secret Order,” a compellingly sharp-tongued drama at Laguna Playhouse. Producer Norman Twain hopes to take the play to Broadway next season.

Under the direction of Michael Sexton, “The Secret Order” briskly analyzes four mostly well-intentioned people who work at a fictional medical institute in New York. Three of them believe they are on the cusp of a watershed event in the battle against cancer.

The commotion is initiated by a fresh idea from William Shumway (Zak Orth), a cellular biologist in his early 30s. Plucked from a university position in Illinois, he’s brought to New York by the institute’s go-get-’em director of cancer research, Robert Brock (Daniel Von Bargen).

Shumway is taciturn and wide-eyed, often with his shirttail hanging out. He has the audacity to believe in God in an environment where such beliefs are likely to trigger smirks. He sees his research as part of a continuing effort to uncover God’s perfect order. Orth, with his unkempt hair and tentative smile, wins the audience’s sympathies immediately.

Brock, by contrast, is impeccably groomed and exceedingly garrulous. His blunt opinions, suggestions and commands seldom stop. He explicitly sees himself as “a soldier” (read: general) in the fight against cancer -- and against rival institutions. He has no patience for the merely “bright”; he insists on “brilliant.” Von Bargen’s rumbling voice and precise timing are ideal for this role.

The two begin to develop a surrogate father-son bond. Brock is distant from his own sons, as Shumway is from his father. But work intervenes before their relationship can get gooey.

The supporting roles are also precisely delineated. Alice Curiton (Shayna Ferm) is a Harvard undergraduate, no less blunt than Brock, who is so impressed by Shumway’s research that she cajoles her way into a job on his staff. She’s attracted to him sexually as well, but playwright Clyman admirably refrains from going very far down that particularly soapy avenue. Ferm’s performance is replete with relentlessly sharp angles, although she is stuck with the generally authentic-sounding script’s phoniest line.

Saul Roth (Howard Witt) is an aging researcher, nearing retirement, who has run out of ideas but remains close to the board that governs the institution. His salary and prestige are vulnerable to Brock’s attempts to make way for the new wunderkind Shumway. Witt admirably establishes Roth’s folksy charm before revealing his inner desperation.

Clyman (known as Robert Clyman during an L.A. production of his “When the Bough Breaks” in 1993) deftly structures his plot so that the worst-case scenario hardly seems inevitable in advance but seems easily plausible in retrospect. He doesn’t spare Shumway culpability, but he also illustrates how Brock and his institutional imperatives hinder Shumway’s efforts as much as they help.

Narelle Sissons’ set suggests the sleek, trim efficiency of high-tech medicine and allows virtually immediate scene transitions. Mark Rosenthal’s big-screen projections of what the doctors see in their microscopes keep reminding us that the stakes in this battle go far beyond prizes and lucrative drug-company contracts.

*

‘The Secret Order’

Where: Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach

When: Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m.

Ends: June 29 matinee

Price: $42-$49

Contact: (949) 497-2787

Running Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Zak Orth...William Shumway

Daniel Von Bargen...Robert Brock

Shayna Ferm...Alice Curiton

Howard Witt...Saul Roth

By Bob Clyman. Directed by Michael Sexton. Set by Narelle Sissons. Costumes by Dwight Richard Odle. Lighting by Paulie Jenkins. Sound by David Edwards. Projections by Mark Rosenthal. Production stage manager Nancy Staiger.