These forms of fiction are infused with the same dynamic, wherein information is parceled out in teasing increments and the line between fact and falsehood keeps shifting. The relationship between narrator and listener has its sadomasochistic aspects. And on one level "The Pillowman" recalls what the French director Henri-Georges Clouzot said about his 1955 cinematic chiller, "Diabolique": "I sought only to amuse myself and the little child who sleeps in all our hearts -- the child who hides her head under the bedcovers and begs, 'Daddy, Daddy, frighten me."'

Under the carefully measured direction of Mr. Crowley -- with brilliant production work by a team that includes, in addition to Mr. Pask, Brian MacDevitt (lighting), Paul Arditti (sound) and Paddy Cunneen (music) -- the cast members act out different degrees of that relationship, as the characters tantalize one another in ways friendly, consoling, manipulative and vicious.

Mr. Goldblum and Mr. Ivanek turn the classic good cop/bad cop formula into a coruscating vaudeville routine. Mr. Goldblum's trademark deadpan wryness has rarely been put to better use, as his Tupolski toys with Katurian like a jaded latter-day version of the police inspector in Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment." Mr. Ivanek, in turn, comes up with delicious variations on the cliché of the combustible, torture-happy cop with a secret past. Their dialogue is appallingly funny, and endlessly quotable, but never out of sync with their characters.

The relationship between Katurian and his brother, the childlike Michal, is mostly rooted in a more amiable storytelling, as befits a fraternal relationship in which one sibling assumes the parental role. (What happened to Katurian's and Michal's Mom and Dad is, well, another story, and it is divulged in several versions.) Mr. Stuhlbarg boldly and expertly captures both the innocence and ugliness of Michal.

Mr. Crudup's finely chiseled features turn out to be ideal for registering the seductiveness, defensiveness and pure vanity of an artist for whom writing means even more than the brother he has protected for many years. Katurian's self-enchanted satisfaction when he tells a story is that of a young magician, pulling off a tricky sleight of hand. And Mr. Crudup makes it clear that the flame of anger burns brightest in Katurian when his stories are criticized or threatened with extinction.

An academic could make endless hay out of this play's narrative complexities and literary evocations (they notably include Kafka as well as Dostoyesvky), just as a sociologist or psychologist could go on about the sources and effects of fiction and its moral responsibility. You could even make a pretty thorough case for "The Pillowman" as an artistic apologia of sorts, directed at those who have dismissed Mr. McDonagh's previous works, set in a mayhem-prone rural Ireland, as pointlessly sensational and whimsical.

But to pursue these lines of thought is to fall into the very traps Mr. McDonagh has set to mock such analysis. Asked by Tupolski to explain symbols and subtext in one of his stories, Katurian answers, "It's a puzzle without a solution." Which is pretty much Mr. McDonagh's credo. But, oh, how he enjoys his puzzles. In this season's most exciting and original new play, he makes sure that we do, too.