Think of Bug, which opens today in previews at Providence Black Rep, as 1984 meets The X Files. This thriller by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts is all about government conspiracies. Paranoia reigns, as we encounter brainwashing parasites, kidnapping and murder.

It’s a show that promises to keep you on the edge of your seat. And one that might just be all the more potent with a black cast.

At first blush, this doesn’t seem like the kind of play Black Rep normally does. Letts’ play is set in the white world of an Oklahoma motel room, where a lonely waitress hooks up with a paranoid Army vet. The two fall for one another, but their relationship turns into a nightmare, as Peter, the vet, reveals that he is the target of a government plot to control the population.

But in Black Rep’s hands its premise is all the more relevant.

“The play has a couple of ties to our mission,” said director Megan Sandberg-Zakian. “One is just in terms of the kind of theater we like to do, which is really visceral. We are always looking for plays like this. We always talk about theater that’s muscular.

“But primarily, some of the themes of the play, about what it’s like to be living in the margins, about someone who is considered expendable by the government, about being poor, are things a lot of Americans experience, a lot of black Americans.

“I think Black Rep is naturally inclined to have more sympathy for the potential truth of Peter’s story. It seems knowing the history of what’s happened to black Americans, a lot of this stuff seems kind of plausible in a way that I don’t know it would with other audiences or other types of casting.”

At one point Peter, who feels he is being watched, rails against government conspiracies, about the feeding of LSD to enlisted men, and watching blacks in Tuskegee unwittingly die of syphilis.

“Why don’t you wake up?” Peter says to Agnes, his lover.

Sandberg-Zakian has been a fan of Letts’ work ever since she saw Bug in New York several years ago. That was before she came to work for Black Rep as associate director. She said she owned a copy of the script and read it all the time.

But she didn’t think about trying to produce it here until she and Black Rep artistic director Donald King went to New York to see Letts’ August: Osage County, which is now all the rage on Broadway.

“We were talking about how much we loved August and what a great writer he is, and I said, ‘You know, I really love this other play.’ ”

The beauty of Bug, which was made into a horror movie starring Ashley Judd, is that it’s ambiguous, that it keeps you guessing. Those who are inclined to believe that the government is out to get us might very well buy into Peter’s theory that the powers that be have created a super-bug, a blood-sucking aphid that can control people.

On the other hand, he could be completely delusional. Agnes eventually buys into his story, but maybe she is just swept up in Peter’s paranoid fantasies. We’re never quite sure.

“I think the audience will be excited to puzzle it out, to put the pieces together,” said Sandberg-Zakian. “Every moment when you think they are crazy, something happens to pull you back in and say maybe they aren’t.”

Sandberg-Zakian said the play has been a challenge because of the crazy, often brutal happenings during the show. It is recommended for mature audiences only.

There is, for example, a brutal murder, and a gruesome moment when Peter tries to extract one of his teeth. A make-up artist has been brought in to handle the special effects, the blood and gore.

Even though some of the scenes are tough to watch, Sandberg-Zakian said at least that will grab the audience’s attention.

“I’m excited about the challenge of making it as mind-blowing as possible,” she said. “Basically, I think it will be fun to watch. You just have to be ready to see some stuff go down.”

Bug opens today in previews at Providence Black Repertory Company, 276 Westminster S., Providence. Call (401) 351-0353 , (401) 621-6123, or log on to www.arttixri.com.

cgray@projo.com