Joetta Wright as Miss Mississippi in Katori Hall’s new play “Pussy Valley,” which premiered Friday at Mixed Blood Theatre. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Most theater shows aim to conjure a simulacrum of reality onstage. "Pussy Valley," Katori Hall's daringly raw and raucous drama that premiered Friday under Nataki Garrett's bold direction at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, wallops you with what feels like the real thing.

It's not just Mike Grogan's neon lights, Nathan Schliz's thumping sound design or Jac Fatale's suggestive choreography that make the show resemble a strip club takeover of a venerable stage. The enveloping realism comes from Hall's writing, which has flights of poetry even as it mines the blue language and frank mores of the pole-dancing milieu, and from the extraordinary performances of the four women who carry this three-hour production.

Jasmine Hughes, Joetta Wright, Megan Rippey and Tatiana Williams deliver with such strength as they execute a battery of pole tricks that it is easy to forget that these are trained actors. That they are able to get us to see and hear their words beyond the spectacle is a testament to their skill.

The quartet of pole dancers in "Valley" get top billing at the Pink Pony, a club where they are lit as vessels for sexual fantasies. But the women, who sometimes suffer injuries while performing acrobatic feats in high heels, lead harsh lives. Miss Mississippi (Wright), mother of a newborn she sometimes brings to work, is trying to escape an abusive relationship even as an old flame (played by Ansa Akyea) entices her to move to California to do adult films.

Get 'em Gidget (Rippey) is hoping to marry her client-turned-boyfriend, a drug-enabler named Duffy (Dustin Bronson). But he also has eyes for Autumn Night (Williams), a middle-class woman new to this world.

Mercedes (Hughes) is a strip club veteran whose father, Pastor Dollah (James Craven), comes to the club to demand a tithe from his daughter.

The play also includes Uncle Clifford (Nicco Annan), a pre-op transsexual who seeks love and acceptance and who runs the Pink Pony with firmness and understanding; indulgent rap star Lil' Murder (the astonishing Mikell Sapp), who has secrets that may ruin his career, and the aptly named DJ Twerk (Darrick Mosley), who provides the profane soundtrack for the evening.

Garrett, who directed "Neighbors" at Mixed Blood in 2011, draws commendable performances from her courageous cast. Hughes shows us Mercedes' strength and brokenness, especially as her father comes into the picture.

Miss Mississippi's journey is perhaps the most heartbreaking, and Wright guides us into her pathos and tragedy with skill.

Gidget, Autumn and Uncle Clifford feel underdeveloped as "Valley" tries to pack too much into the story.

Still, once you tune your ear to the language, as you would any Shakespearean play, or get past the setting, this play by the author of "The Mountaintop" is actually a fairly conventional story. It's about people who seek solace, fulfillment and a living, albeit in a place where few may enter. But you needn't go to the strip joint. Mixed Blood has brought it to a theater near you.

rpreston@startribune.com 612-673-4390