One comes away from the current production at the Ernst Lab Theatre ruminating on the obligation of the playwright — or any artist — to reach resolution.

One expects a work of art to be complete, rounded and whole. Anything left unfinished — absent sudden death of the artist — should be unfinished for a purpose, to provoke continued exploration on the part of the viewer or listener.

The recent film success of "Doubt" is good example. Its title alone makes clear that the guilt of the central character is intended to remain uncertain and to stimulate discussion.

But an ambiguous ending in a theater piece sometimes reads as the playwright's copping out, especially when there are two dynamic sides to the central argument that are more interesting than anybody's final answer.

So it is with "Seascape with Sharks and Dancer." Written by prolific contemporary playwright Don Nigro, "Seascape" reworks the same argument in each of its five scenes, upping the emotional ante in each, but never cashing in its chips.

We've seen the central premise before, mostly in romantic comedies. A quirky and unconventional young female disrupts the routine of a steady, more conventional young male and they fall in love. Opposites may attract, but will they stand the test of time?

In "Seascape," a self-isolated writer rescues a woman from drowning and brings her to his beach cottage. When she recovers, she screams for "service," then taunts him for being a "eunuch." When he passes the test of her abuse, she rewards him with sex. The woman is a study in pathology. The man appears to be the personification of unconditional love and a patient sex hound.

She drops a prophetic line early in the script: "People who aren't going to rape me usually throw me out in the first two months." That seems to be the shelf life in her relationships.

The remainder of the action suggests what might have been the early days of George and Martha, before the cataclysmic night of binge drinking that makes up "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" But, unlike George, the young man in Nigro's play doesn't fight back. And his passivity in accepting abuse carries its own pathology that his halo of unconditional love doesn't erase. He deserves one of Martha's verbal jabs to George, "Of course you can stand it, you married me for it!"

The production directed by Michelle Yung Hurtubise features excellent performances by Erin Chung and Danny Randerson, and keeps us engaged through its cyclic action and all the way to its unresolved lack-of-conclusion. The pair creates strong, consistent characters and play off each other with fine timing and emotional control, deserving a wider audience than will likely respond to the late-night venue.