Who knows why the bolt won't come. But in life as in theater, there's always something like this -- the rusted nut that won't turn, the stripped screw head. This afternoon it's the carriage bolt holding the final leg to a plywood-and-two-by-four riser, and it's mocking Rodney Lee Rogers.GRACE BEAHM/STAFF

The two-person play's handling of its charters' response to the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center made it difficult for even New York audiences.

Rogers, 35, comes to this job with a bunch of titles: actor, director, playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker.

But at this moment, with the seating and stage configuration at PURE Theatre in the midst of being pulled down, moved and rebuilt, he is torn between a few others -- carpenter, stagehand, father and businessman among them.

The stubborn bolt is a show-stopper: Until the leg comes off, all other work must wait. Ultimately, a College of Charleston drama student cracks the two-by-four leg with a borrowed hammer and the problem is solved. Rogers smiles.

"A man after my own heart," he says.

Just 10 feet away, Rogers' wife -- actor and PURE Theatre co-founder Sharon Graci -- entertains their 7-month-old daughter even as her mind ranges ahead to the next issue: leg room.

Specifically: Does the second row of seats have enough of it? Rogers drifts over and they confer and test, then move the front row 2 inches closer to the stage.

In the midst of all this, Rogers pauses to change his daughter's diaper center stage, then returns to the set-design conundrums, letting the questions and decisions carry him along, rolled-up Huggie forgetfully clutched in his hand.

If Rogers and Graci sometimes seem distracted -- intensely so -- it's understandable.

Both sense their next play will be something of a bellwether, a sign of things to come. Five months and three shows after opening their company in the Port City Center on East Bay Street, Graci and Rogers know firsthand that critical acclaim alone won't pay the bills.

Yet profitability isn't exactly what they're looking for, either. What they're seeking is their audience. " 'Lobby Hero' (their first production) made a lot of noise," Rogers says later, trying to characterize the significance of what they're doing. " 'Mercy Seat' will be the place where either it took off or it didn't."

'THE MERCY SEAT'
There's a lot of recycling that goes on in theater, but playwright Neil LaBute's "The Mercy Seat" is barely broken in. Its three-month run at New York's off-Broadway Acorn Theater (starring Sigourney Weaver and Liev Schreiber) ended a year ago, and so far as anyone here can tell, Thursday's premiere will mark the play's first performance in the Southeast.

Set on Sept. 12, 2001, not far from the collapsed World Trade Center towers, "The Mercy Seat" opens with a man ignoring a ringing cell phone. He is a husband and father who missed death in the terrorist attack because he was at his mistress' apartment, and a day after the disaster he still is contemplating whether he simply wants to disappear, wipe out his old life and start fresh with his mistress -- wife and 12-year-old daughter be damned.

It's not exactly Neil Simon, but this is the niche PURE has been seeking. "The Mercy Seat" is the kind of risky fare a small-market city is unlikely to attract -- too edgy for many established companies, too challenging for many community-theater groups to pull off successfully.

Graci and Rogers believe there's a local audience for "The Mercy Seat" and its cutting-edge kin, but with no marketing study to back that up, they're playing a hunch. "Most theaters have to play the hits," Rogers said. "We're not going to do that."

TELL TWO FRIENDS
It's Graci's third try at rehearsing one of her monologues, and something she does releases a surprising burst of emotion that simply sucks the air out of the room. Rogers is on the couch as Ben and Graci is behind the counter as Abby, and in that still beat of time and place, their connection practically crackles. The intensity ebbs and the fourth try at the scene lacks the same raw vulnerability, but the moment illustrates something about Rogers and Graci: When these two are "on," you can almost smell the ozone.

The PURE story is really the Graci-and-Rogers story: She was the divorced mother of three children, the founder of the Charleston Children's Theatre and one of the city's most respected actors; he was an award-winning independent filmmaker and actor who had come to town to scout locations for a movie.

"And then I met Sharon," Rogers said. "And that was that."

Love rewired his life. A veteran of West Coast and New York drama circles, Rogers in 2002 suddenly found himself a family man in the suburbs: carpools, a sturdy old Volvo, soccer practice, a new baby. Maybe 2003 wasn't the opportune time to start a theater company, but it didn't seem to matter. Commercials and screenwriting gigs paid the bills (barely), but PURE was their passion.

The company has staged three previous productions since opening in August, but "The Mercy Seat" represents its boldest step so far. It also marks the first time they've gone outside their partnership for a director: College of Charleston School of the Arts professor Franklin Ashley.

Ashley's background lies more with writing than directing, but he was excited by the opportunity to direct two actors he admired in an honest and emotional play he loved. "The combination of LaBute and these two is a great triangle," Ashley said. "It just seemed like the perfect thing."

PURE's marketing plan is as simple as it gets: Before performances of its most recent play, Graci sometimes asked each member of the audience to go out and tell two friends about what they'd seen. In December, she sent out e-mails making the same appeal. Not that they aren't thinking big. Graci dreams of someday hiring an arts manager, finding corporate sponsors, qualifying as an Actors' Equity company, maybe even paying herself and Rogers a salary. But that comes later.

"We're at the point now," she said, "where we just have to get butts in the seats."

In the meantime, PURE Theatre will just keep turning all those stubborn bolts, one after the other.