Chiké Johnson and James Vincent Meredith Photo by Vashon Jordan Jr.

The story centers on Gil and Benny, two men who learn they are brothers on the heels of their father's death. Gil, raised by Gus alongside three successful sisters, seems to be the beneficiary of an immigrant success story involving multiple successful businesses under the Jones and Sons banner. In contrast, born just six days after Gil, Benny grew up in and out of foster care as a result of his mother's fragile mental health.

What seems poised to play out as a tense, rather well-trodden family drama instead occupies the space of a year to explore some far rarer avenues of brotherhood, masculinity, kinship, and sense of self, and does so with genuine, well-earned warmth. Although the events do not end happily and the turn toward the tragic is somewhat abrupt, Chakrabarti deftly sets up and challenges stereotypes and implicit assumptions about how the individual and intertwined stories play out.

Similar to the story, the staging feels a bit rough around the edges. An upright piano forms the most stable element of Rasean Davonté Johnson's scenic design. This, a sporadically featured metronome, and the title (along with an absolutely killer pre-show set list) seem to promise that music will be more of a backbone for the play than it actually is. Certainly, when the brothers bond over their experiences of foundational '80s hits, Johnson uses this effectively to incorporate a bar of club lights, but the amount of focus it pulls throughout the show is somewhat perplexing in retrospect.

In the transitions between scenes, Johnson's projections, in conjunction with an impressively versatile set of blonde wood baffles that retract and and converge to create intimate and cavernous spaces, do a masterful job of moving us back and forth through Chicago. And when the action settles into a scene, some of the projections perfectly capture a diner or the melancholy windows of a dry cleaner on Christmas Eve. But others, notably in representing the interior of the brothers' respective homes, have a distractingly two-dimensional feel.

Jason Lynch's lighting design admirably supports the most successful elements of Johnson's projections. Together with the sound design and composition by Willow James, the lighting offers the audience productive moments to digest one scene and suggests what themes the play wants us to carry into the next. Finally, for a show with such a small cast and a compressed timeline, Yvonne Miranda's costumes significantly enrich the storytelling.

It's difficult to discuss the performances of Chiké Johnson (Benny) and James Vincent Meredith (Gil) separately, as the strength of one rests fully in the hands of the other. But Johnson's drunken, opening meltdown is as heartwrenching as his achingly restrained eulogy at the end. Similarly, Meredith's quiet command early on plays productively and movingly against his character's final unspooling. And in between, the two bring out the very best in one another as they spar and dance, both literally and metaphorically.

Hymn runs through May 25, 205, at Chicago Shakespeaer Theatre Company, Jentes Family Courtyard Theater, Navy Pier, 800 E. Grand Ave., Chicago IL. For tickets and information, please visit chicagoshakes.com.