WELCOME TO THE FOG: Rats!

Pull out your hip flasks, everybody, because a mean fog’s rolled in and some creepy shit has been seen down by the docks: mysterious shipments; creatures torn to shreds; strange thuds, scurries, and squeaks. These scary developments drive up the pulse rate in Running Over Productions’ fall horror offering: Wharf Rats, a brand-spanking-new thriller written by local thespian-of-many-hats Keith Anctil and directed by Ariel Francoeur at the Presumpscot Grange Hall.

This debut full-length play from Anctil centers around a raunchy, authentic, and extremely entertaining coterie of hard-drinking dock-scramblers: sensitive Neil (Will Stewart); big, affable buffoon Joe (Dan Clark); moody and aggressive Sal (Rick Dalton); and sweet but wise-ass tomboy Reggie (Kathryn Morrison). They all work down on the wharves for the shipping company owned by Ronnie (Cynthia Carton), who’s got a hard head for a rough trade and the best set of tits in the business, too. Nobody makes a hell of a lot of dough on the docks, and they spend most of it after work at Pearlie’s, the drinking establishment of a wise and comely wharf hag (Jana Regan). Neil, who’s got a girl he wants to marry (Kerry Elson) and a developmentally disabled brother to take care of (Mike Best), works extra hard to get by. But things get even more difficult for everyone when a weird fog rolls in. Drunken former sailor August (Eric Worthley) has seen its likes before, and it ain’t no good. It stops trade, is accompanied by dead things and mysterious strangers, and causes everybody to stare a little longer and harder at each other.

Anctil’s script does a marvelous job of balancing dramatic tension with comic relief (which includes myriad penis-size insults, “you’re so poor” jokes, and gleeful, unabashed obscenities) and Francoeur (an Escapist, after all) clearly relishes the comedy. The rough humor of this thriller is just as important to ethos and setting as the scary parts because it shows us the bonds and the breaking points of this hardscrabble gang, and under Francoeur’s direction the banter never feels like a side-thought. The particularly dependable vehicle for jibes and jabs is Clark’s Joe, who has a heart of gold and a tits-and-ass joke for every occasion. Clark’s performance of the extended punch line to “How many women with PMS does it take to screw in a light bulb?” is alone worth the price of admission.

Both script and individual performances allow for luxuriously developed characters; when things turn traumatic, our wharf folks show us sides of themselves that are deeper but still utterly consistent and convincing. The wiry and weathered-looking Stewart has an expressive face for both affection and shadow; his joy defies gravity when he interacts with his younger brother. As the haunted Sal, Dalton balances his increasing fright with the hard, ironic humor at his core, and the saltier members of the gang — barmaid Celia (Janice Gardner), Reggie, and the fabulously no-nonsense Ronnie, temper their shock with inspired cussing.

Francoeur pays a lot of attention to the physical as well as the social configuration of this colorful bunch, using the full depth of the stage in the bar scenes. Her tableaux of the wharf folks — though sometimes a bit on the static side — establish the dimensions of their social world, and also give a great sense of the jolt that occurs when someone new steps into it. When the alabaster and too well-dressed stranger Von Brimmer (Denis Fontaine, at once snide and spooky) comes to call at Pearlie’s, the mise-en-scene is momentarily as deep and fraught as a shot out of an Orson Welles flick.