A young man goes to war a boy and comes home a man. It is inescapable that he would see his parents with a new perspective and this is precisely the topic of Frank Gilroy's "The Subject Was Roses," now playing at City Center's Manhattan Theatre Club and presented by Pearl Theatre Company.

Pearl is dedicated to the classics, and Amy Wright, a force majeure on her own, directs Gilroy's 1964 Pulitzer Prize-winning play. The whirlwind this family is reaping was made more than 20 years prior and they have, matchstick by matchstick, built a wall insulating each from the other.

Dan Dailey, who plays John Cleary, is a member of Pearl's resident company. He strikes the right balance of a man who is largely self-made, a product of his society and yet someone who has the capacity for change. Carol Schultz adroitly plays Nettie Cleary, the mother and wife in the piece, and feels and makes us feel the angst of being between her husband and son and their difficult and loving relationship. Yet when her husband reaches out for her, none-too-gently, after a celebratory family evening out, City Center's smaller, nearly in-the-round theatre makes a perfect space for our discerning every nuance of her disgust, her fear and her anger at this imperfect expression of her husband's love.

And what of Timmy, home from situations that those who have not served in the military could not understand? He comes home with the idyll of his growing up beneath the reality that he now understands was there all the time, like a ghost at a wedding. He plumbs some of the situations from his childhood he had hitherto thought were coincidences and discovers that chance in real life is truly rare.

This was my first experience with Pearl Theatre Company in its new City Center space and this show is rendered fiercely real, coaxing barking laughter at times, then the search for that tissue you know is in your coat pocket. The Sunday, April 18, 2:30 p.m. matinee, was the end of the previews, so the show has just opened. Get tickets now before they are all gone. Timely now, when men and women are coming home from yet another war, as it was more than 45 years ago. Conveniently located, with great restaurants nearby, Pearl Theatre Company is moving up in the world and you owe it to yourself to see this underappreciated jewel.

For subscription tickets and information, please contact Audience Services at 212/598-9802 or visit www.pearltheatre.org. Single tickets can be purchased by calling CityTix(r) at 212/581-1212, online at www.nycitycenter.org or at the City Center Box Office, 131 West 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Shows are offered Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. and are available at $40 for performances on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; $50 for performances on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Students with a valid student I.D. can purchase $10 tickets to every performance, two per valid I.D. and subject to availability at the box office, on the day of the production. Remaining tickets for Thursday evening performances are available for $10 on the day of the performance only, up to one hour before curtain, subject to availability at the box office. In-depth discussions, post-performance on Tuesdays, give audiences the opportunity to participate in intimate talkbacks, led by published scholars and experts within their fields, and will take place on April 20 and May 4.