By Melinda Miller

Maisie lives in a trailer park, suffers from migraines and is not a person with a lot of ready cash. If asked to describe herself, the word “mighty” would not even cross her mind. 

All humility aside, though, Maisie is unquestionably the heroine of the fantastical new play “The Mighty Maisie,” making its debut with American Repertory Theater of WNY.  Maisie doesn’t carry sword or shield, badge or battering ram. Her weapons are an open door and a good heart; she’s always ready to welcome the women who need her, the women the world does not protect.

Playwright Bella Poynton has packed this curious exercise in neighborhood magic with two kinds of characters: four quirky women, each with a personal burden, and three of the men in their lives: a sadistic, crooked cop; an unemployed wife-abuser; and a good-natured mail carrier. 

All the action takes place in Maisie’s front yard – an effective set framed with pallet fencing and furnished with potted plants and a rocking chair. Front and center is her front door and a small porch.

What a porch it is: This innocuous little stoop somehow has acquired a force field that repels any male who dares to step up on it, providing an invisible barricade for Maisie’s entryway and the safe haven behind it. Despite the men’s suspicions, Maisie (Marie Hasselback-Costa) professes not to know how the energy field works. 

Perhaps the aliens know – the ones who occasionally pick Maisie up in their spaceship to treat her migraines and, apparently, erase all memories of their frequent encounters. 

The story of the stoop underlies the busier parts of the play: In the opening scene, a young woman named Penny (Maryna Sophia) is vomiting in Maisie’s yard after a dangerous date night that went horribly wrong. Maisie offers aid to her messy, uninvited guest, who is without her purse, wallet and phone but still is holding onto leftover anger and distrust from the previous evening. 

But, she needs a shower, so she goes inside. June (Mariangela Mercurio) also comes by for coffee and to escape her abusive husband, Rizzo, played with aggressive frustration by ART regular Andrew Zuccari. He is so desperate to control his wife that he constantly tests the “power of the porch” – and loses. 

Even scarier is Briggs (Anthony J. Grande), a well-armored bully of a cop who is light on the law but heavy on “enforcement.” His temperamental opposite is Dave the Mailman (Scott Gattie), an easygoing peruser of his customers’ mail who likes the Great Courses and has a thing for Zanna (Emily Yancey), a twitchy and likeable addict. 

All these characters enter and exit in a rhythmic ebb and flow.  Poynton packs this tiny bit of real estate with so storylines that the overlap gets pretty messy. 

Ultimately, when Maisie’s sanctuary comes under threat, fear makes even her friends begin to doubt her. Emotions run high and uncertainty takes hold until it looks like everything is going to fall apart. It reminded me of the Dylan lyric “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose,” but it turns out that not everyone gives up that easily. 

Kelli Bocock-Natale is director of this world premiere and has done a good job finding the humanity and hope in Poynton’s unusual story. She and the cast show a deep respect for these flawed characters and their clashing lives of unquiet desperation. Technical sound and lighting by Matt LaChiusa underscore both the economic poverty of the setting and the mystical power that has chosen to inhabit it. 

If you leave with more questions than answers (and yes, there are some answers), that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“The Mighty Maisie” continues at American Repertory Theater of WNY, 545 Elmwood Ave. (upstairs, and pull hard on the outside door; elevator is through the door on the far right), through Feb. 22. Shows are Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays at 5 p.m. The Maisie Mardi Gras Party will follow the Feb. 22 production, at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $25 at artofwny.org or at the theater.