For each of us, in our minds, there is "The Other Place."

It may be real. It may be our imagination. We may be in or out of touch with it. It may be, well, who knows.

That uncertainty is at the heart of the stunning production of "The Other Place" by Sharr White that opened Friday night at Madison’s Forward Theater Company.

It’s easy to think of this as a show carried on the main character, Juliana, performed with exquisite emotional and intellectual breadth by Tracy Michelle Arnold, a member of the APT resident company.

But there are two women who carry this play: Arnold, who is onstage, and Brenda DeVita, the artistic director at APT and the director of this show.

Juliana is a high powered medical researcher who has discovered a new drug and is now engaged full time in peddling it for the company, which expects to make billions of dollars on it.

She is at a convention of doctors in St. Thomas, extolling the virtues of the new pill, when she is distracted by the appearance of a young woman in a yellow bikini sitting in the audience. The sight of the woman throws her off her speech, and she rushes from the convention to return home to her husband, Ian, to whom she describes her "episode" at the convention.

"Brain cancer," she says. "I have brain cancer."

That pronouncement to her oncologist husband, who Juliana believes has been cheating on her, sets us off on a journey to "The Other Place."

That’s what Juliana calls the beach house that was a part of her childhood and her early life as an adult. It’s a place that she thinks is safe for her, as she deals with the dangers of her episode, her brain cancer, a reunion with an estranged daughter and the infidelity of her husband.

But as we see so clearly once the drumbeat reaches its rhythm, the "other place" is so much more than a clapboard building on the edge of an ocean.

It’s a place in her mind, in the mind of each of us, where demons dance quietly around the edges, picking and poking, looking for the holes where they can set up shop. It makes for confusion and a reckless memory that delights in nothing more than playing tricks.

The tantalizing thing about this production is how DeVita has invited each of us to take our own journey, watching Arnold weave one spell only to have it shatter as she moves to yet a new place. The play sparkles with energy, and but it also asks for energy from the audience, almost as if we play a role in the production.

Arnold is well accompanied by Steven M. Koehler, who plays her husband, and Georgina McKee and William Botz who each play several roles. In addition, there is spectacular lighting for this performance by Jason Fassl, who creates his own "other place" for Juliana to wallow in.

But this is Arnold’s show, and DeVita shows her deft directorial hand by not letting anything get in the way of the story that Juliana has to tell. She wants to come face to face with whatever this is and not give in to its force.

I’m not going to reveal the ending of this show since it may well prove as surprising and powerful for you as it did for me.

But the bravura work of Arnold is well worth the trip to Madison.

Great performances are made out of little pieces. Early in the play, as Juliana gives her pitch to the doctors arrayed before her, she puts her hands on her hips and glares down at the multitude as she explains in detail the scientific breakthrough she sells. It is while she is in mid speech and notices the woman in the yellow bikini that she pauses, puts her weight on her right leg and her left leg sticks out in her pinstriped suit. Not far, but a little bit. And then it twitches. In that twitch, you know this is something more than seeing a woman in a yellow bikini in a room full of doctors. It’s not a big thing, but it’s the kind of evocative skill that Arnold brings to this role.

And when it ends, each of us, I am sure, are full of curiosity about our own "other place" and what it is that might just be waiting for us there.

"The Other Place" runs through Feb. 1 and information on tickets and showtimes is available here.