In the world of the playwright David Ives, situations float at the far edge of the social map and quickly drift off into uncharted territory.

A shy young woman with a stutter shows up for a language lesson and ends up speaking fluent Unamunda, an Esperanto-like tongue that, unbeknownst to her, she is making up on the spot. Three monkeys with typewriters bicker over the problem of trying to write “Hamlet.” A man offers advice to a friend who’s stuck in “a Philadelphia,” a perverse parallel universe in which basic needs, like cheese in an omelet, can never be satisfied. The man tells his friend not to worry, to flow with it. But then again, he would; he’s stuck in a terminally laid-back state known as “a Los…