Fri. Dec. 9 – Sun. Dec. 11

 "Every junkie’s like a setting sun." Neil Young sang that line in "The Needle and the Damage Done" way back in the early ‘70s – he’d lost a couple of friends that way – and to me, at that time, it seemed a distant impossible nightmare, the end of a dark tunnel no one would ever go down, knowing what’s gone before and, especially, what lies ahead. But that’s not the way it works. Cautionary tales can be informative and scary. Read books by ex-junkies Richard Hell, Pete Townshend, Eric Bogosian or Jerry Stahl. Listen to Lou Reed’s "Heroin." Consider the stories of Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley. People don’t necessarily learn from others tales; they must go down that road themselves, emboldened by the concept that (initially) there’s so much pleasure and (certainly) this won’t happen to them. It’s a sad drama that keeps getting played, year after year.

Or, as Kathleen Turner, as Sister Jamison "Jamie" Connelly puts it in "Hight" at the Cutler Majestic Theatre through Sunday, "Why would a person do the same thing over and over again knowing the horror?"

Evan Jonigkeit plays Cody Randall, the 19-year-old junkie in Matthew Lombardo’s play, based to a degree on Lombardo’s own experiences of falling prey to addiction and worthlessness. Cody seems to be a street-smart kid, but may be less naïve about the consequences and more nihilistic. If he dies, so what? He’ll have his escapist fun and get out. His life’s been horrible, starting with childhood rape by her mother’s "boyfriend." His mother was a junkie and whore; he turned tricks from an early age, and, yet, at some level, he knows he’s sunken into the gutter when he’s pushed into the hands of Sister Jamie, a tough broad, husky-voiced Turner, who returns to Boston after starring in "The Graduate" and "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf." Jamie is nun, yes, but a most a foul-mouthed one (she gives Dexter’s sister a run for her f-bombs), and she’s also a recovering alcoholic whose unenviable task it is to break Cody down and build him up. Father Michael Delpapp (Timothy Almeyer) has given her him as her charge even though his level of addiction and depravity is beyond her usual counseling regimen. Must be a reason. There is. It’s revealed down the line.

This is unquestionably a dark night in the theater, the opposite of a feel-good play for the whole family, a perfect holiday delight The two-hour drama is played out on a stark stage by David Gallo – two white doors, an office chair – and there’s occasional ominous music by Vincent Olivieri. And there’s lot of drug-induced braggadocio and anguish from Cody and some hard truths from Sister Jamie: "Drug addicts always speak the truth," she sarcastically notes before asking why Father Michael why he’s playing the guilt card with her. "I’m a Catholic priest," he answers. (He was the one who helped her out of her homeless, alcoholic spiral.)

There’s also some acidic, darkly humorous banter between Jamie and Cody. She: "You still having suicidal thoughts?" He: Why? You got any to spare?" Jamie breaks him down. He’s not so special, a garden-variety junkie. At one point, when high, he strips naked and confronts Jamie sexually in a gulp-inducing scene.

Jamie tries to lead him to God via the Catholic Church and teaches him the rosary. "How do you feel?" she asks, as he’s fingering the beads. "Stupid," he says. "Good, that means you’re doing it right," she replies. She tells him the scorpion/frog parable – when the frog gives the scropion a life across the water and the scorpion stings him (dooming them both), the frog asks, "Why?" The answer: "It’s in my nature." And that’s the junkie mindset in a nutshell. (I once had former New York Dolls guitarist and infamous junkie Johnny Thunders attempt to steal my black leather jacket backstage, much to my shock and horror. I snatched it back. It was only later I realized that junk had stripped away any sense of right and wrong. Junkies lie. Junkies steal.)

There are key plot developments in "High" I won’t reveal, involving the relationship Cody shares with Father Michael. There’s at attempt at redemption and a stab at faith. But addiction and recovery are both grinds and "High" doesn’t flinch from reality. It’s a potent reminder of the horrors drugs can do people and the horror people can inflict on other people because of the drugs.

Friday and Saturday shows at 8. Saturday afternoon at 2 and Sunday at 1 pm and 5 p.m. Ticket: $95-$25.

219 Tremont St. 617-824-8000 www.aestages.org