When 26-year-old actor Matthew Amendt decided to write a play, he could have done what plenty of others his age have done: scribbled down some ironic, self-referential, comic tripe that would provide stage time for himself and his buddies. Instead, he looked to antiquity and penned a 2 1/2-hour story imagining what would happen if Aristophanes — the best known ancient writer of comedy — had attempted to write a noble tragedy.

Only a young man would attempt such an unbridled, uncommercial act of chutzpah. And while "The Comedian's Tragedy" isn't perfect, it's a work of such lyric beauty, such prescient wisdom, such clarity of vision and such contemporary resonance that I'm going to rave about it anyway: This isn't just a good first play. It's a good play, period.

As it tells the story of an artist struggling with his conscience and his muse (Tracey Maloney, feisty and fine), "The Comedian's Tragedy" deftly mixes the high-blown language of the ancient plays with a contemporary sensibility — a blend made manifest in Ron Menzel's elegant, excuse-me-please turn as the Chorus Leader.

Amendt plays Aristophanes, blending Method Actor heat with classical actor cool to ask the Big Questions of that age and ours. Can art change the world? Do we dare to hope? Would you die for your ideals or live to fight for them? The story is told with measures of naivete and hard-won experience, sensuality and violence, finished off with a dollop of existentialism.

Amendt

is a fine actor, but his dramaturgical gyroscope is impeccable, and he has a poet's ear for the well-turned phrase. What lovelier compliment can you pay someone than to say, "You run, and the light chases you"? What more damning indictment of an adversary than to call him "folly made flesh"? And what more potent image of the power of drama than to claim that "the trees themselves bent their branches" to hear a tale?

Veteran actors like Michael Tezla (grizzled and grounded as Aristophanes' father-figure uncle), Chris Carlson (an unkempt and provocative Socrates) and John Riedlinger (manipulative and matter-of-fact as Athens' military leader Cleon) have given themselves to this low-budget venture, and they return talent that buffs a gem.

I know it's summer. I know the material sounds unwieldy. But "The Comedian's Tragedy" is grand and original and fine and rewarding; a story worth telling and worth hearing.

Theater critic Dominic P. Papatola can be reached at 651-228-2165.

IF YOU GO

What: "The Comedian's Tragedy"

When: through June 15

Where: Minneapolis Theatre Garage, 711 W. Franklin Ave., Minneapolis

Tickets: $15 suggested donation

Call: 612-730-5237

Capsule: Take a chance on this unlikely summertime offering; you'll be rewarded.