He can’t resist that animal attraction

Fitting two lives together in a relationship is never easy, even under the best of circumstances. So if your new girlfriend turns into a wild animal from time to time, what’s one more wrinkle?

Unfortunately, this particular discovery threatens to be a deal-breaker for an infatuated Minnesota cop in “Mating Dance of the Werewolf,” Mark Stein’s offbeat, darkly comic meditation on romantic complications and the instinctual part of our natures that can’t be tamed.

In a superb collaborative debut production from Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre and Canada’s Manitoba Theatre Centre, Stein’s inventive adult fairy tale does to courting rituals what TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” did for high school angst: transform the conventions of the horror genre into exaggerated but still-recognizable extensions of everyday experience.

An intriguing mix of weirdness and familiarity propels this boy-meets-wolfwoman love story, told through a series of flashbacks in the aftermath of a gruesome killing. From the opening line, in which the hero cop, Ken (Christian Anderson), asks if they’ve found a victim’s head, it’s clear Stein knows how to get our attention.

Under the skeptical questioning of his boss, Raul (Anthony Crivello), Ken traces his turbulent relationship with mysterious, sultry Abby (Katy Selverstone), the new girl in town, who happens to be a werewolf.

Abby isn’t shackled with mythical full moon, silver bullet baggage -- those elements are “metaphoric,” she explains. Instead, she periodically transforms to reconnect with her wild, animal urges (in a wry nod to Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ “Women Who Run With the Wolves.”).

The play’s charm lies in how this love affair, for all its bizarre extremes, still follows the same stages as every relationship. First, the infatuation: From the moment they first met, he knew she was special (admittedly a bit more so than he could have foreseen). Intrigued, they start sniffing around each other (literally, in her case).

In the heat of mutual attraction, things always start off great, but soon the limitations begin. Like every lover coming down to earth, Ken learns that the object of his affections isn’t quite the idealized creature he thought. For her part, Abby must face the risks that go with disclosure. “Anytime I share my secret with a man, the relationship starts to go south,” she confides in a hilarious exchange of feminine gripes with Ken’s ex, Pam (Niki Landau), now married to his fellow cop, Allen (Wes Berger).

In a riveting performance, Selverstone perfectly captures Abby’s feral, predatory oddness with the disarming directness of a creature completely comfortable in her own skin, even as she struggles to accommodate the compromises of relationship that threaten her fierce independence.

Anderson’s Ken is suitably sympathetic but needs to convey more clearly that there’s more to his attraction for Abby than her strangeness -- she is putting him in touch with wild impulses in himself.

Manitoba’s Steven Schipper stages this fanciful tale at a lively pace with plenty of atmosphere, nailing the script’s sly nuances and underlying truths about relationships. Only in its finale does this witty reinvention of the werewolf genre settle for the formulaic. Mature audiences will delight in its ingenuity, provided they can embrace Stein’s premise that “most of what we believe is rooted in love, or hate or hurt -- as opposed to facts.”

*

‘Mating Dance of the Werewolf’

Where: Rubicon Theatre Company, 1006 E. Main St., Ventura

When: 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays

Ends: May 22

Price: $25 to $48

Contact: (805) 667-2900 or www.rubicontheatre.org

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes