"Dreamtime," which is on the Waldron Stage at Mill Mountain Theatre, is a challenge to watch.

A challenge not because playwright Maura Campbell dwells on the gruesome killings that inspired her one-act play -- she does not -- but because the play is structurally complex and full of arresting ideas. Failure to pay close attention can be costly. Thus "Dreamtime" is challenging in the best sense and for that reason is a worthy entry in the annual Norfolk Southern Festival of New Works.

"Dreamtime" is taking turns on the Waldron Stage with Freyda Thomas' "Splitting Heirs" during this year's festival, which runs through May 18.

Real-life Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop were murdered in their New Hampshire home on Jan. 27, 2001. Their convicted killers were Robert Tulloch and James Parker, teenagers from a nearby town.

Using the homicides as a starting point, Campbell has imagined the inner lives of her characters and the places where those dreams intersect with each other and with reality.

The victims dreamed of a blissful hereafter together, though in truth their loving marriage was already near-heavenly in its quality. The teenagers' reality was boredom in small-town New England, their adolescent dream a new life of pleasure and adventure in Australia.

To finance their escape, they set out to steal money from affluent neighbors and to leave no witnesses alive. Thus did the realities and dreams of killers and victims cross paths.

In addition to imagining what was going on inside her principals' heads, Campbell has changed their names.

The German-born professors are called Jorg and Greta Adler in the play and are convincingly portrayed by Chris O'Carroll and Judy Leavell in their first Mill Mountain appearances. The boys, renamed Noah and Willy, are played by Aaron Keller and Matthew Harris, respectively.

Playgoers may recognize them from "Lord of the Flies" and other recent MMT shows. In "Dreamtime," they infuse their characters with just enough bravado, insecurity and stupidity to be credible as misguided adolescent killers.

Multiple supporting roles are ably filled by Steven Gibbs and Lucinda McDermott.

There are times when "Dreamtime" seems a bit self-conscious and over-thought, but they're infrequent in a generally absorbing work. And the play is certainly a refreshingly different animal from the musicals, comedies and conventional drama that traditionally are Mill Mountain's bread and butter.

Directed by Todd Ristau and featuring a minimal but effective set by Jimmy Ray Ward that is in some ways as provocative as the play itself, "Dreamtime" insists upon the viewer's attention and demands that his own imagination be engaged.

In the Norfolk Southern festival, which has been showcasing new and experimental works for nearly two decades, this is entirely appropriate.