SEATTLE — These are people who live out loud.
They reveal their deep emotions, be it around a table and a bottle of gin, in bed late at night or on the couch with a guest.
They’re Raymond Carver’s people, and their stories, delving into many kinds of love, are unfolding on Seattle’s Center Theatre stage courtesy of Book-It Repertory Theatre through next Sunday, Oct. 18.
With an ensemble of four actors, Book-It is presenting a quartet of works surveying Carver’s career: “What We Talk about When We Talk about Love” from 1981, 1964’s “The Student’s Wife,” 1986’s “Intimacy” and 1981’s “Cathedral.”
As Carver, who lived the last 10 years of his life in Port Angeles, receives renewed attention, Book-It presents a long-awaited encore.
“We did these same four stories 18 years ago,” adapter and director Jane Jones said, adding that the company began exploring Carver after staging one of Port Angeles writer Tess Gallagher’s stories, “Girls,” a couple of years before.
Gallagher is Carver’s widow and the executor of his literary estate; she granted director Alejandro Inarritu permission to use “What We Talk about . . .” in his 2014 movie “Birdman.”
The film did well, to put it mildly. It sold out Port Townsend’s Starlight Room theater during its run, and won Academy Awards for best picture, director and screenwriter.
“’Birdman’ jolted us,” said Jones.
On the Book-It stage, “What We Talk about” is told with the bare essentials: two couples, drinking and discussing the struggles that come with love, lost and found.
Kevin McKeon plays Mel, the cardiologist consumed by love’s complications, including his ex-wife, his children and his current partner, whose definition of love differs.
“The material is some of the most incisive . . . the deepest stuff I’ve ever worked with,” said McKeon.
Mel is a tough and tormented character to inhabit for the 29 minutes of this story, even if there are elements of his life the actor connects with.
“What Mel is trying to get at,” McKeon said, “is the essence of what love is.
“It’s so perplexing to him; he cannot figure it out on an intellectual basis.”
McKeon also plays the Writer in “Intimacy,” a story of a man visiting his estranged wife, played by Carol Roscoe.
And at the end of the show, he portrays Robert, the blind visitor in “Cathedral.”
This man, said McKeon, is uplifting to play.
Robert and his host, Mike (Andrew DeRycke), sit down on the sofa, a coffee table in front of them. At first, Mike is altogether uninterested in his guest. But their conversation leads to a moment of magic: They envision and draw a cathedral together, making a connection that elevates both men.
To McKeon, Carver’s story is about hope, and about how a man can see the world anew.
“If you’re open to having your eyes opened,” he said, “to see the wondrous things around us, then there’s some hope of grace.”
In the Center Theatre lobby, Book-It has mounted a display about Carver’s life and work. The fiction writer and poet died of lung cancer in 1988, and is buried at Port Angeles’ Ocean View Cemetery.
The lobby also has a board where theater-goers can post three-word answers to the question of what love is. Also part of Jones’ effort to give audiences an interactive experience: talk-backs, aka discussions after some shows. One more is slated after this Sunday’s 2 p.m. matinee.
“Everybody has a different [story] that hits them,” Jones said. Though Carver didn’t write for the theater, his stories are “so actable. His dialogue is so naturalistic,” with hard stones the characters must press against.
Carver’s people hold nothing back, even as they take risks with their lovers and friends.
In each story, Jones said, she has asked her actors to “climb those mountains — and jump off of them.”
