Parents who suffer through the death of a child never get over their loss, as David Lindsay-Abaire's "Rabbit Hole" makes plain at Olney Theatre Center. This 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning play is suffused with sadness, but its argumentative characters ensure there are sparks of life amidst all the ruminations about an early death.

The playwright literally brings the issue home by confining the action to the comfortably furnished suburban New York house occupied by an early middle-aged couple, Becca (Deborah Hazlett) and Howie (Paul Morella). Their only child, a 4-year-old son, died when he chased their dog into the street and was hit by a car.

Becca and Howie constantly relive that fatal accident and play out various what-if scenarios. What if they had kept the fence's gate locked that day? What if they didn't have a dog? An overwhelming sense of guilt prompts them to lash out at each other, threatening to bust their marriage apart.

Worst of all is that the house is filled with the boy's toys, clothes and other possessions. They can't bear to look at these material traces of his life, but they can't bear to part with these items, either.

Hazlett and Morella movingly convey how Becca and Howie see what's happening to the marriage, but feel helpless to somehow turn things around. They're seeing professional grief therapists, but this only seems to heighten their awareness of the problem and give them a larger clinical vocabulary for it.

Having members of Becca's family routinely check in only seems to make matters worse. Becca's younger sister, Izzy (Megan Anderson), has just been in a bar fight and seems pretty wild in other ways, too.

There's no doubt the sisters love each other, but their acrimonious arguments certainly put that love to the test. Anderson is such a spirited actor that she makes the stage come alive with her agitated presence. Izzy is angry, after all, not depressed.

The sisters' mother, Nat (Kate Kiley), is a bit problematic in terms of both scripting and casting. This chatterbox maternal figure is saddled with a long speech in which she spins a theory about how the wealthy Kennedy and Onassis families were destined to lose family members to an early death. Even if her notions have merit, Lindsay-Abaire ("Kimberly Akimbo") thematically overloads his play here. "Rabbit Hole" already has enough domestic underlining of its themes without having Nat go on and on about famous families ripped apart by death.

The Olney production directed by Mitchell Hebert also has borderline unconvincing casting, because there doesn't seem to be quite enough chronological distance between the actors playing Becca and Nat. Although it never ruins their scenes together, it remains a nagging thought.

Fortunately, the Olney cast is attuned to the integrity and intensity of this play. They take us through stages of grief that include depression, but also the more life-affirming emotions that make the play much easier to watch than you might fear.

"Rabbit Hole" runs though Aug. 31 at Olney Theatre Center, at 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, in Olney. Tickets are $25 to $48. Call 301-924-3400 or go to www.olneytheatre.org.

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