If all falls could be so sweetly depicted

First there were the real-life eccentrics: Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edie, related to Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. Then there was the 1976 cult documentary

Grey Gardens

, about their living in a decaying mansion so filthy it was declared a health hazard. Then, last year, there was the Off-Broadway hit musical about them. Then the musical moved to Broadway, where it was an even bigger hit and where it happily resides at this very moment.

And now there is Painted Bird's premiere of A Few Small Repairs, a charming and moving play by David Robson, based on the same strange people; Robson invents the backstory as to how this high-society family fell upon such hard times.

And not only is the play good, but it provides a rare opportunity to see, at the Second Stage at the Adrienne, two fine, underemployed local actors of great talent and courage: Hazel Bowers as Big Alice and Sonja Robson as Little Alice (not to be confused with Albee's Tiny Alice, although I bet there's a joke in there somewhere). Their performances create characters of subtlety and humanness; nowhere does either actor slip into caricature or yield to the temptation of an easy laugh.

Skillfully directed by William Roudebush (evident even in the preview performance I saw), costumed to bizarre perfection by Charlotte Cloe Fox Wind, the story unfolds bit by bit. A Few Small Repairs creates, in tiny increments, both admiration and pathos for Little Alice, this peculiar, hairless, middle-aged daughter who, with her "low threshold for guilt" finds her life has vanished in devotion to her demented mother.

Sonja Robson prances and sways, wearing strange, brightly colored getups - towels pinned with rhinestone brooches on her head, red tights with runs, flea collars as ankle bracelets - while always conveying Little Alice's trapped intelligence and bold desperation. She flirts, frantically, with a young guy (Foster Cronin) who comes to repair a hole in the wall.

Hazel Bowers, who first appears asleep in the midst of an astounding mess - ripped newspapers, dirty glasses, old socks - creates a Big Alice who seems vaguely deranged but who can still summon up her breeding and her sophistication. She is haunted by her ex-husband (the dapper Arnold Kendall), and her conversations with him blur cleverly into the conversations with real people in the room.

As the well-meaning cop (Jerry Puma) who comes to help evict them sums it up, given the choice between time and neglect, "I'll take neglect every time." Neglect, unlike time, can be fixed with "a few small repairs."

Written by David Robson. Directed by William Roudebush. Sets by Dirk Durrosette, lighting by Joshua Schulman, costumes by Charlotte Cloe Fox Wind, sound by John Mock.

Cast: Hazel Bowers (Big Alice), Sonja Robson (Little Alice), Gene D'Alessandro (Quinton), Foster Cronin (Teddy), Arnold Kendall (Mr. Burton), Jerry Puma (Clymer), and Len Webb (Granville).

Playing at: Second Stage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St. Through April 22. Tickets $15 to $25. Information: 215-563-4330 or www.paintedbirdproductions.org. EndText