“Somewhere in Montparnasse, down a narrow cobblestone street, across a courtyard and behind a gate with a sign that reads ‘Beware of Dog’ lies … the Territory,” or so suggests the immersive opening strand of UC Berkeley student Elena Wagoner’s original play, “The Territory.”

In real life, you can find “The Territory” by following a winding path alongside Strawberry Creek into the grimy neon-lit bowels of the Cesar Chavez Student Center, down some stairs and into the Choral Rehearsal Hall. There, set designer Gena Whitman has created an engaging and vivid representation of the Territory, a Parisian artist’s loft after which the play is named.  The set is strewn with pages of writing, paintings and other assorted ephemera of the artistic protagonists whom the audience will come to know. It is within this introspective and claustrophobic confine that the characters clash, combat, create and fall in and out of love with each other.

The Territory is itself the work of Kirill Ostrovsky (Chandler Hudson), an enigmatic Russian expat who founded it as an avant-garde studio, much to the ire of his neighbors. When Elizabeth Archer (Niamh Denyer), a young and indecisive Irish wanderer, comes to the lodge at the Territory, she sparks a series of events that force her to come to terms with her naive views on love and artistic creation.

Wagoner’s characters, especially her dual protagonists Elizabeth and Kirill are well-drawn portraits. Elizabeth’s hang-ups about life and sex and Kirill’s anxieties about the dual roles of creator and teacher are immediately relatable, complex and well-developed over the course of the play. Wagoner handles the subject matter adroitly and delicately, giving the audience only enough information about her characters to follow the story.

The characters and themes of “The Territory” are difficult because they are universal. When does the student become the teacher? How do we learn to love?  In long discussions around the kitchen table, the characters swap stories about love, life and art, trading barbs and literary references as they go. If the setting of a Montparnasse artists’ hideout is a tad cliche, the play’s observations are not. In one scene, Elizabeth poignantly describes being torn between her parent’s conflicting views on where love and life meet. Her inability to reconcile her parents’ philosophies left her naive and unlearned in both matters, something an over-pressured college audience can well relate to.

The supporting cast performed their roles with energy and humor, though at some moments, script and performance might have ventured too far into the realm of caricature. There are some (admittedly funny) physical gags that do not advance the plot so much as distract viewers from important drama. The script was also under-invested in certain aspects of its characters’ lives, particularly Kirill’s childhood, which was briefly touched on, as though intended to set up some later reveal, but was never revisited.

The strong ideas in “The Territory,” its sense of character and place backed by an incredible effort from its production team make the play worthwhile. Despite the play’s issues, “The Territory” is a great place to stop by. In the end, if like the characters, none of us, feel any closer to resolution, we certainly don’t feel any poorer for having spent some time in their company.

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