Move over “Fifty Shades,” Midcoast Actor’s Studio has a provocative play with lead characters who actually have chemistry.

Venus in Fur is a play-within-a-play currently showing at Belfast’s Playhouse in the next couple of weeks. The 2010 Broadway play, originally written by David Ives, is an adaptation of the 1870 novel Venus in Furs by the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, which happens to be the novel that inspired the term masochism.

Interested now?

Here’s a glimpse of the plot:

Venus in Fur focuses on Thomas Novachek, the writer-director of a new play opening in New York City. The play begins with Novachek on the telephone lamenting the inadequacies of the actresses who have showed up that day to audition for the lead character, Wanda von Dunayev. Suddenly, at the last minute, a new actress, Vanda Jordan (Johannah Blackman), bursts in. At first it's hard to imagine that she will please this very particular and exasperated writer/director: She's brash, vulgar and unschooled. But she convinces him to let her audition for the part of Wanda, with the director/writer reading the part of Severin von Kushemski. Much happens during this dynamic reading, as lightning flashes and thunder crashes outside, with a highly emotional, erotically-charged script adapted from one of the raciest novels of the 19th-Century. They talk, plead, argue, caress and more.

Jason Bannister, founder and artistic director of the Midcoast Actor’s Studio, said it was coincidental that the play opened right around the same time as the movie everyone is talking about.

“We didn’t mean to open it at the same time, but everyone is making comparisons to the movie Fifty Shades of Grey. But, this is much better. There’s definitely humor in there, a play of words in interesting situations.”

The play, directed by Robin Jones, features Tyler Johnstone and Johanna Blackman as the lead characters.

“There’s a big change from beginning to end for both the male and female characters. He’s not really impressed with her when she first arrives as he’s had a long day of horrible auditions, but by the end, he’s been totally transformed by this mysterious creature.”

Asked what what the play’s theme centers around, he said: “Power. I think the tag line that Robin came up with was based on the Oscar Wilde quote ‘Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.’"

Performances continue this weekend until March 1 at the Playhouse 107 Main St. in Belfast. Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sunday matinees are at 5 p.m.

Tickets are $15 for adults and $12 for those over 65. This production is for mature audiences only and limited seating available.

For tickets call the box office at 370-7592, email midcoastactors@gmail.com, visit midcoastactors.org.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com