The Rep scores with a lush, globetrotting Roof of the World

The sentiment is so common, it hardly bears repeating: Good theater depends on good design.

But never has one designer’s vision seemed so critical to a play’s success than it does in Roof of the World, the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s world-premiere production of playwright D. Tucker Smith’s script.

The play begins in New Delhi in 1967, with a young woman (Vanessa Severo, preternaturally poised) hunting desperately for a painting by 19th-century British explorer George Hayward (Rusty Sneary, stealing scenes and stashing them in his beard for safekeeping).

Her motives aren’t hard to guess. Hayward was equal parts adventurer and intelligence agent for the British Raj; his paintings weren’t just creative diversions but also functional maps, charting terra incognita for the British. The goal? An intelligence advantage over Russian rivals during the Great Game (an unsportsmanlike struggle for dominance in central Asia).

Smith yanks us back in time to follow Hayward through rooftop chases and daring escapes (well-directed and choreographed by Eric Rosen) that approximate the real explorer’s movements. But the play’s greatest adventure is Smith’s invention: a romance between Hayward and the “half-caste” Indian spy (Anjali Bhimani) who saves him.

To be sure, Smith’s script is a hit in its own right: Her historical romance credibly combines the swift pace and high stakes of an old-Hollywood adventure with the intimacy and class-consciousness of a Victorian drawing room play. But that scope comes with serious challenges for directors and designers, chief among them the script’s splintered setting. The play spans centuries and continents, shifting kaleidoscopically from a stuffy London parlor to a Kashgar prison to an unmapped forest in the Pamir mountains — the titular “roof of the world.”

The solution? A literal trunk show. Scenic designer and probable wizard Jack Magaw has crafted an enormous cube adorned like a steamer trunk, the faces of which open out like French doors to reveal several mini-sets. Ladder rungs on the corners allow actors to summit the cube for mountain treks and gunfire chases; a clever trap door makes for magical disappearing acts and realistic campfires (credit lighting designer Amanda Zieve for the latter). A turntable stage spins the trunk like a globe, speeding the play’s numerous scene changes.

The other production elements only inflate the grandeur. Jeffrey Cady’ projections race across the trunk like ticker tape, lending a furious energy to scene changes. Amanda Zieve’s lights define playing areas and conjure harsh climes. And Gregory Gale’s lavish costumes evoke both class and setting (a black-and-gold dress for Charlotte is a visual feast) while demanding heroic quick-changes from the Rep’s cast.

The actors are up to the challenge. As Safia, Bhimani anchors the cast with a fierce performance that radiates warmth. Her love for Hayward is palpable, as is their chemistry, and while Safia is undoubtedly a feminist heroine, Smith is never smug or didactic about her victories.

Brent Harris is captivatingly creepy as Edward, George’s money-minded brother. The most sinister lines trip delicately off his tongue, thanks to a house blend of chilly English propriety and Kelsey Grammer-grade sneers. Darrie Lawrence provides comic relief as his mother, Charlotte, and Matthew Lindblom (as Martin) and Bree Elrod (as Prue) inhabit small roles with depth and precision. Jason Chanos makes a jovial friend to Hayward as fellow explorer Shaw, and Mark Robbins is memorable as Rawlinson, the overambitious president of the Royal Geographical Society.

Smith’s heroes are sympathetic, but she resists the temptation to modernize their points of view. Travel may have opened Hayward’s mind, but he’s still a glory-hunting narcissist. Edward’s racist screeds will chill modern audiences, but his “enlightened” family waves them off as parlor chatter. But while some conflicts are easy to dismiss as relics of a shameful past, others feel sadly current — say, Edward’s lusty defense of his hard-earned wealth despite a penchant for white-cravat crime.

As with any epic of this scale, a few kinks remain. An attempted rape is poorly motivated and clumsily staged. Partial lighting of previous playing areas pulls focus from the new. And at times, supernatural elements intrude confusingly upon otherwise realistic sequences. The boundaries between present moment and unmoored dreamscape are muddily drawn and tested too seldom for the Rep to develop confident patterns of presentation.

But the company’s treatment of Roof of the World lives up to the script’s ambitions. The result is not only a fresh, striking romance, but also one of the Rep’s more creative and charismatic shows to date.