Family relationships can get so intense and so heart-wrenching that they are hard to watch. There are few places outside a family where love and hate can incubate so deeply and with such passion.

“Topdog/Underdog” by Suzan Lori-Parks is one of those stories that slashes at one’s soul, because it is a portrait of everything that can go wrong – even when people are trying to make it go right.

Ixion opens its first full season with this Pulitzer Prize-winning show, and the team of director Paige Dunckel and actors Rico Bruce Wade and Sineh Wurie hold nothing back in this tragic tale of two brothers who are trying to survive and find their place in a world that has no room for them.

Wade plays the role of the older brother Lincoln “Link,” while Wurie is the younger brother, Booth. Living together in a dilapidated apartment with no running water or phone, they live off the money Link makes as a Lincoln impersonator at a carnival arcade. People pay money all day to shoot him with a cap gun while he pretends to watch the play. Meanwhile, Booth excels at shoplifting and wants to become a three-card Monte hustler. It’s a trade that Link gave up after his partner was shot and killed.

Wurie is all energy and passion as Booth. It is as though lightning is crackling inside him at all times. Booth is angry and intense, constantly scheming of ways to make his life better. He’s haunted by his past and present, and it drives him in angry ways.

Wade provides a contrast to Wurie’s tension. Wade is calm, in control, relaxed even when he is anxious. He knows why he’s made the choices that he’s made and is never at the mercy of whims or emotions. His Link is temperate even when Booth provokes him.

Together these two fine actors dance upon a teeter-totter, fiddling on the roof in a most precarious fashion, one up and one down, and each stealing the advantage on each other only to lose it moments later. They struggle against each other – anger and control in a constant war. They each manipulate in their own way – one through violence and the other through skill and playing upon the other’s over confidence.

It is a play about tensions and pacing, and Dunckel makes certain there is a constant play of intensity so that even the silent moments grab the audience and keep them intently focused. She also manages to find moments of humor, though it is a humor that is costly. This is not a family with “Brady Bunch” moments. Rather, the release comes when Link and Booth are able to connect and to show that they are sometimes on the same side, that they still want to be brothers even after all the betrayals.

Ixiion performs in a small storefront with limited technical abilities. On opening night, the show was done with natural lighting, as the light board died 15 minutes before performance. This made some of the transitions more challenging and awkward, including the show’s ending, where a light’s out would have helped put closure on a dramatic moment.

The set was a simple one that clearly communicated the straits that the brothers lived in. A bed, a recliner and stacks of milk crates made up the furnishing, with set dressing composed of littered porn magazines, garbage bags, toilet paper and whiskey.

“Topdog/Underdog” is by no means a feel-good play, nor is it comedic. Rather, it is a serious drama that is violent and harsh. Wade and Wurie are fully committed to the script, and they make no apologies for the harsh things their characters do or for who they are. It makes for an intense night of theater that offers little hope for redemption or reconciliation.