d cake, and children were being raised by grandparents or foster care, wouldn’t there be complaints? Wouldn’t people get up and do something, Mr. Jack?”

Gardley’s script takes hard-to-stomach ideas -- like the strong resemblance the prison system bears to slavery, and the way that high schools in mostly black, low-income areas feed young men into the prison system and then brand them for life -- and coats it with enough satire, self-referential humor, and broad impressions (an ailing grandmother was an audience favorite) to make it palatable. He takes familiar myths and turns up with the tale of Little Red Riding Hoodie and the magic bag of weed. Most impressive is the way he spins dialogue into spoken word poetry, which the talented cast of five actors lets spill out of their mouths seemingly effortlessly. A 90-minute play in which almost all of the dialogue rhymes may sound grating, but Gardley’s skillful writing makes it seem as natural as daily speech, like modern-day Shakespearean verse.

If you’re up for a night of heart-breaking comedy and song, get yourself to Irondale Theater in downtown Brooklyn to see “The Box: A Black Comedy” before it closes.