There was something comforting about returning to the theater after enduring back-to-back hurricanes here—a real “the show must go on” feeling and a return to some sort of normalcy.

But make no mistake, Urbanite Theatre’s “soft opening” production of the play Jennifer, Who Is Leaving, is far from being a sweet-to-swallow piece of work, despite its setting in a Dunkin’ Donuts shop.

Morgan Gould’s short but sharp dramedy introduces us to four characters as a winter storm swirls around those familiar orange walls and doughnut trays. (Jeff Weber’s set design is right on target, down to the restroom which ends up playing a big role here.) The first is Nan (Suzanne Grodner), the type of determinedly cheerful older woman who laughs even when she complains. We first find her on the phone with her hopelessly incompetent husband, who can’t find or accomplish anything at home without bothering her repeatedly during her shift.

Nan is even willing to put up (for a while, at least) with a terminally cranky customer (Ned Averill-Snell), a dementia patient who was back on his way to his facility when his caregiver, Jennifer (Urbanite’s producing artistic director Summer Dawn Wallace, back onstage at the theater after a bit of a hiatus), makes a wrong turn in the storm. And Nan takes the time to offer encouragement to young part-time employee Lili (Trezure B. Coles), who really wants to be at home studying for her SAT exam.

Over the course of the night, Nan and Jennifer swap stories about their husbands and grown children, with some keenly observed lines that come off funny but leave a sting afterwards. They even cut loose with a loosely choreographed dance to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” piped over the restaurant’s speakers.

But under the laughter, and the attempts to carry on with the demands of her life as usual, Jennifer, who’s facing repeated verbal abuse from her elderly patient, is near the breaking point. Wallace and Grodner play that scene with all the emotions you’d expect, directed by Celine Rosenthal to heart-breaking effect.

The cast may have had a shorter than usual prep time for the opening, due to the very real storms that raged in our area, but that doesn’t show in their performances. Grodner and Wallace have the most opportunities to shine here, but Averill-Snell makes the most of his aggravating patient routines (just try not to get really tired of him; you can’t). And Coles has the chance to shift the mood and add some depth in a monologue later in the play, where she tells the story of a hard-working female lawyer and her lawyer husband—perhaps Gould’s way of showing us that gender inequality exists on every class level, not just at a Dunkin’ Donuts.

There’s bound to be more recognition of and identification with the play’s characters for the women in the audience, but let’s hope that the men get it, too. It may be “A Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” as the song goes, but “it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.”

Jennifer, Who Is Leaving continues through Dec. 1 at Urbanite. For tickets, call (941) 321-1397 or visit urbanitetheatre.com.