At the beginning of The Tricky Part, Martin Moran — that is, actor David Spencer — comes to the stage, casually reminding audience members to switch off their cell phones and he immediately sets the audience at ease. There is an air of improvisation. However, for the next 80 minutes, Moran’s monologue is anything but improvised. It is an intricately structured meditation woven with dramatic intensity; descriptions rich in imagery; humor, and an appropriate, natural sense of ambivalence that echoes the spiritual paradoxes of grace.

Moran, the actor and playwright who conceived this work in 2003 first as a Sundance Theatre Lab project and later as a highly-regarded published memoir, normally performs the play. However, the new Plan-B Theatre production, directed by Jerry Rapier, quickly sets aside any concern about other actors being able to effectively communicate this extraordinary story. Spencer embraces the role in going beyond the phenomena of trauma and healing for what becomes the quotidian challenge for each of us — coming to terms with our emotional, spiritual, and moral dilemmas and contradictions. Spencer, a well-known actor in the community making his first Plan-B appearance, is seamless and honest in his portrayal, a convincing testament to understanding why Moran’s vividly detailed story is so universally compelling.

The Tricky Part stands out as an exceptional entry in this contemporary age where autobiographies and reality programming often are stark, naked confessionals. They are popularized for an incessantly curious audience which often values black-and-white answers over the grey areas of ambivalence and contemplation. No doubt, Moran’s story — which begins during his formative years, when he, between the ages of 12 and 15, had a sexual relationship with an older man — should upset and anger us. However, audience members will not hear specific referential terms of molestation or abuse. Nor will they hear condemnations or demonizations of the Catholic Church, which figures predominantly in his boyhood years.

Spencer’s portrayal, perhaps, is all the more remarkable because while Moran may not be an actively practicing Catholic, he makes it evident that he is a man of Catholic being. And, Spencer is convincing in Moran’s warm, often humorous, recollections of attending Catholic school during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The stories rang with such credibility that I was readily reminded of my Catholic school days.

The paradox of the Catholic identity looms large in Moran’s work. One may readily go to the credible assessment that the Catholic Church approaches sexuality naively and clumsily (e.g. Pope Benedict XVI’s distinction of “strong” and “weak” love, of which only heterosexual couples would ever be capable of “strong” love). Yet, the more important theme explored in Moran’s work is the paradox of grace. Moran’s story reminds me of Reinhold Niebuhr, a controversial and terribly misunderstood theologian of Christianity in the last century, who indicated that forgiveness (grace as justification) and endowment with power (grace as sanctification) were both true. However, he also acknowledged that, on one level, the self experiences renewal and on another the self remains guilty.

This strand is explored prominently in Moran’s story. Without necessarily going into theological complexities, one can understand that Niebuhr wanted to restore the Augustinian concept of grace as justification, which had been subordinated a long time ago in the Church, to its rightful place of relevance. In other words, if one accepts atonement by faith, then one can see the palpable significance of ambivalence not just in Moran’s story but also in each of our lives.

And, this is where Spencer’s performance shines especially well. In particular, he renders the transformative poetic language of the campfire setting where the young boy is first seduced with an unforgettable emotional intensity. We hear about those events in Moran’s life that not only made him confused, guilty, and ashamed but also positively important in shaping his life. That is, he can be proud of his life as an actor and writer, a loving family member, and the partner of his same-sex spouse. The ambivalence is further underscored as he explores rhetorically how would his life have turned out differently if he hadn’t taken a paper route and become friends with a neighborhood boy, if he hadn’t taken music lessons from a favorite sixth-grade teacher, or if he hadn’t gone to a youth camp with the man who would trespass upon his innocence. The ambivalence is just as apparent when we hear of Moran meeting 30 years later the older man, now a diabetic patient in a Southern California veteran’s hospital.

Spencer’s performance indicates that The Tricky Part, which has won an Obie Award as an off-Broadway production, has potential as an enduring creative property in the tricky class of monologue plays. In the hands of a capable actor, Moran’s beautifully written play emerges as a story significant not just for its timeliness but also for its timelessness — the manifestations of the spiritual journey each and every one of us makes.

The play’s run continues through June 15 at the Studio Theatre in the Rose Wagner Center for the Performing Arts. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Ticket information is available here.