We all, and single New Yorkers perhaps especially, resist accepting that the kind of bonding which we are privileged to enjoy when young undergoes a transformation with the onset of maturity. What a grown-up might take as an adult best friend is almost always something else:  a seat warmer to keep one company until a lover is found. Or a rubber stopper, someone to plug up the hole created by a loved one who has left.

Enter Lanford Wilson's mournful and seductive Burn This, a study of what happens to a much more existential group of pals when the rubber stopper that keeps their societal boat afloat is suddenly removed. Call it 'Courtney Cox in Hell' as Wilson's quartet, composed of a soulful woman, her wise-cracking roommate, a mysterious beau and a bothersome relative, conspire to show us that placing too much false hope on a single human will result in nothing but a home where "somebody's always crying."

Anna (Elisabeth Shue) is a wreck when she learns that her roommate Robbie, along with his gay lover, has suddenly died in an accident. She had invested in him an attachment much deeper than that shared with her current beau, Burton (Ty Burrell). Indeed, when Burton drops in on the depressed Anna early in Act I, there is no spark between them. They seem barely aware of each other, their dynamic clearly thrown forever out of wack.

Shue gives a strong, underplayed performance as a struggling dancer who won't face herself if she doesn't have to. She is beautiful to the point of distraction, however, never really looking like the basket case she confesses to be and with bare feet much too nice to belong to a dancer. Still, her moodiness and en pointe fragility make her every bit as sympathetic as Sera, the big-hearted hooker she portrayed in Leaving Las Vegas, who also had problems letting go of the dead. Burrell is fine as the sexually confused Burton who claims a mere platonic affection for Robbie, despite certain less than hetero experiences he has stored away.

Larry, Anna's other, still-breathing roomie, works in advertising, which makes him conflicted enough without having to deal with the demise of someone he too clearly counted on for approval. Cast in the role of the jovial and gay kindred spirit for Anna to lean upon, Dallas Roberts finds the right mix of comic and bittersweet, even though the part was underdeveloped by Wilson.

The search of these three characters for a new normality is violently interrupted by the arrival of Robbie's brother, Jimmy. Nicknamed Pale—ostensibly for his love of V.S.O.P. brandy—he crashes into the mix of mourners like a Scud, while remaining a pale substitute for what they have been Robbie-robbed of. Anna takes him into her arms in a way Robbie surely never experienced. But after months of turmoil, both internal and external, the two end up lost together on her sofa, both wishing Robbie could have loved them differently, neither accepting how incorrectly they loved him.

Peter Sarsgaard is the new Pale, stepping into the role that was recently vacated by Edward Norton and first portrayed by a scenery-eating newcomer named John Malkovich (Circle Rep, 1987). Mr. Sarsgaard's relative anonymity serves the play well, giving the character a truly convincing feel as the stranger who seems totally unjustified in his outbursts. The fact that his violent streaks are tempered by his ability to make a perfect pot of tea is Wilson at his quirkiest. That he pries his way into these New Yorkers' lives so easily is further testament to the unsteady ground beneath their uncallused feet.

In an odd attempt to modernize the script, a few cellphone references have been inserted. But thankfully, even though Christine Jones's set design cries out for a snow-white Apple iBook to offset the appropriately minimal apartment décor, the play is computer illiterate. This tragedy of internalized sadness, missed communications, and co-dependence within a very small clique simply could not have been written in the age of email, chat rooms, and online support groups. Even Burton's pivotal statement about writing—"Make it personal, tell the truth, and then write 'Burn This' on the bottom,"—presumes no second copy sitting on a hard drive. It is clear that each of Wilson's characters has no ability or desire to acquire new relationships. Just as on NBC where Monica and Rachel find true love only within their peer group, one night of surfing Match.com would send the world of these four spiraling.

Burn This
by Lanford Wilson; directed by James Houghton; set by Christine Jones; costumes by Jane Greenwood; lighting by Pat Collins; sound by Robert Kaplowitz. Presented by the Signature Theater Company at the Union Square Theater, 100 E 17th St, Manhattan. Running time:  3 hours.

With: Elisabeth Shue (Anna), Ty Burrell (Burton), Dallas Roberts (Larry), and Peter Sarsgaard (Pale).

Until January 5. Tickets:  &65. Box Office:  (212) 505-0700. Ticketmaster:  (212) 307-4100. Signature Theater Company's revival of Fifth of July, opens January 16 at its brand-new Peter Norton Space, 555 W 42nd St (10/11 Ave), until March 9. Tickets:  (212) 244-7529 or www.repeatseat.com.