Next up for Winding Road: 'Rough Magic'

Arnold is directing Winding Road Theatre Ensemble’s “Rough Magic,” which opens in previews Thursday.

The dark comedy by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa “references films, musicals, Shakespeare. It’s X-Men meets Harry Potter meets Shakespeare,” says Arnold.

Sure, go ahead and shake your head in wonderment. But if you understand the source, the mash-up may make more sense.

Aguirre-Sacasa is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and has written for Marvel Comics, as well as for the television series “Glee” and “Big Love.”

With such varied interests it isn’t surprising he would turn out such an eclectic play as “Rough Magic.”

The Reader’s Digest version: Prospero, the powerful magician from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” has had his must-have book of magic stolen. He whips through time and place to look for it in Manhattan, and he’ll do what he has to do to get it back. Not so fast, Prosp baby: fighting him is a dramaturge who is able to lift characters off the pages of plays and fling them into her world; Caliban, Prospero’s son, who is a dim bulb with a good face; Tisiphone, a Fury from Ancient Greece hell-bent on exacting revenge, and Chet, a teenage Coney Island lifeguard. Come on: how can you resist?

Parallel universe rather than time travel: “I see it as parallel lives, rather than past to present,” says Arnold. “I get the sense that it’s all happening at the same time.”

At the play’s core: “It is essentially a tale of good against evil, with a subtle plot line of love and romance and friendship,” says Arnold.

Funny, but …: “As with all comedy, there’s a really important message there; sometimes comedy is the best way to get that across,” she says. “It’s about the magic of theater, the magic within us, human potential, the possibility of existing in different time frames at the same time.”

Why see it: “If you are tired of watching the same old action films, this is a really refreshing foray into what might be classified as an action adventure,” says Arnold. “It moves. It’s a spectacle.”