When a show uses “Medea” as its starting point, you go in knowing it will be a rough ride,­ and Marina Carr’s “By the Bog of Cats” doesn’t disappoint in that, or any other, category. In the more-than-capable hands of Frank Theatre, which has spent 20 years bringing the difficult to the stage,­ the play becomes a wild carnival ride, as the audience goes up steep hills and plummets into deep valleys before traveling deep into the darkness.

The play centers on Hester, an Irish Tinker whose life centers on her young daughter, Josie, and her home in the Bog of Cats. It’s a place where our world and others intersect ­ and you can have a conversation with a ghost just as easily with your neighbor. Hester lives with deep contradictions of character and is haunted by events deep in her past. All of this has come to head on this day, when Josie’s father, Carthage, plans to marry the daughter of the local land baron. All of these characters are wrapped up in each other’s lives, and their secrets ­ both in this world and the next ­ have come home to roost.

Carr’s terrific script is a fine starting point, but the work truly comes alive in the hands of Frank director Wendy Knox and a talented cast of performers, led by Virginia Burke as the wild Hester Swane. She is a hard character to sympathize with, especially after some of the dark chapters of her life come to light, but Burke makes the audience, at least, empathize with her look at life.

Strong performances are the order of the day with the rest of the cast, including excellent turns by Bob Davis, John Carton, Melissa Hart and especially Annie Enneking as the local witch/medium/pick your title, the Catwoman. The show is also buoyed by excellent costumes and set, and a wonderful soundscape by Michael Croswell, which brings the unearthly qualities of the Bog of Cats to life.

“By the Bog of Cats,” a Frank Theatre production in the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio, Minneapolis. Through April 5. Tickets $18 to $30. Online.