Allison Crews in “Rabbit Hole” at Rhode Island College.

Hayden James

David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Rabbit Hole” is the ultimate elephant-in-the-room play, a biting drama about a couple dealing with the death of their child, a couple who can’t take a breath without bumping up against their loss.

The play won a Pulitzer and is now getting a solid student showing this week at Rhode Island College.

This is a tightly knit play by one of the best craftsmen in the business. Lindsay-Abaire was a student of Christopher Durang at Juilliard, and produced the zany “Fuddy Meers” that was staged not long ago at 2nd Story Theatre in Warren. But “Rabbit Hole” is a very different sort of animal, a poignant, rather serious look at a couple trying to cope with the unthinkable.

There are uncomfortable moments of humor, to be sure, but “Rabbit Hole,” directed by RIC’s Jamie Taylor, is mostly a study in grief, and the strains that puts on a relationship.

Four-year-old Danny was struck by a teenage driver as he ran into the road chasing his dog. But we get only hints of this as the play opens with sisters Rebecca and Izzy discussing Izzy’s pregnancy, a bitter reminder that she is having a child when Rebecca has lost hers. Husband Howie enters and tries to get frisky with Rebecca but she is not interested. She has closed down and won’t consider having another child.

This leads to frustration on Howie’s part, to the realization that life will never be the same. And that is the crux of the play, having to move on when there is no clear path, no clear solution to the problem at hand.

In some ways this is not as brilliant a work as “Fuddy Meers,” which is about an amnesiac who is kidnapped by a madman and the host of wacky situations that follow. I can’t say I was disappointed with this production, but I felt it was a little flat, devoid of the surprises and unexpected and eccentric twists of Lindsay-Abaire’s earlier work.

He is a skilled writer, though, and the student cast did a fine job getting his lines across. Allison Crews, as Rebecca, was very strong, a bottled-up woman who could be difficult but also understanding. Her awkward scene with the driver who killed her son, played by Adam D. Bram, was really quite moving. And Jeffrey Church’s Howie was totally believable.

As act two opens Howie is holding an open house, trying to downsize to a smaller home that doesn’t have so many memories. But he has kept son Danny’s room intact, which tends to freak out prospective buyers. That leads to a wrenching scene in which Rebecca and her mom start packing up Danny’s stuffed toys and books.

Tara Gray plays the mother, Nat, with just the right mix of caring and insensitivity as she continually compares the death of her adult son to the loss of Danny. Crews and Gray play off one another nicely.

Samantha Acampora’s Izzy is a breath of fresh air, a sort of down-to-earth sibling who has no trouble understanding why sister Rebecca hauled off and smacked a negligent mom in the supermarket.

“Rabbit Hole” has no great climaxes, but it is filled with moments of truth, moments that tell a lot about our emotional makeup. It really is a study in survival, as Howie and Rebecca ponder their next move. That is, in fact, how the play ends, with the couple seated on a couch saying “and now what.”

“Rabbit Hole” continues through Sunday at the Helen Forman Theatre at Rhode Island College. Tickets are $15. Call (401) 456-8639.

cgray@projo.com