In the opening minutes of Eboni Booth’s play “Primary Trust,” the character Kenneth speaks to the audience about the people and the layout of his small hometown, which surrounds him in the form of miniature-scale buildings.

It’s similar to the opening scene of Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play “Our Town,” but that’s one of many illusions and surprises in this beautifully written, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful play that opened Sunday in its West Coast premiere at La Jolla Playhouse.

This isn’t Wilder’s idyllic turn-of-the-century New Hampshire, but small-town Cranberry, New York, which has fallen on hard times, and people like Kenneth, who is Black, are few and far between.

Achingly portrayed in one of this year’s best performances by Caleb Everhardt, Kenneth is a lonely 38-year-old bookstore employee with a kind-hearted boss and just one friend, Bert, who he meets five nights a week for happy hour mai tais at a local tiki bar. That’s all Kenneth has and that’s just about all he can handle.

Orphaned at age 10 in a horrific trauma and shuffled through foster homes in his teens, he survives in a state of arrested development — afraid of change, afraid to trust anyone new and afraid to retire the coping skills that hold his rage and fear of abandonment at bay. But change is inevitable when Kenneth loses his job and his carefully organized but sterile life falls apart.

Knud Adams masterfully directs the taut, 95-minute production, generously layering in humor to balance the story’s darkest moments. Scenic designer Marsha Ginsburg’s mini-cityscape set, peppered with empty retail shops, weeds and Marsha Tsimring’s flickering lights, is a character all by itself.

James Urbaniak is quirky and very funny as three different characters, Kenneth’s odd but supportive bosses, first at the bookstore and later at a bank, Primary Trust, as well as an incompetent waiter. James Udom has a warm, supportive presence as Kenneth’s oldest friend, Bert. And the highly versatile Rebecca S’Manga Frank plays a multitude of servers at the tiki bar, customers at the bank and Corinna, who becomes Kenneth’s kindred spirit.

Completing the cast is musician Luke Wygodny, who composed the show’s original score and plays several instruments onstage, including frequently dinging a desktop service bell, which serves to punctuate Kenneth’s thoughts, take him back in time and separate individual scenes.

There’s a potent minimalism to Booth’s writing. Kenneth often starts a narrative thread, then cuts it off, saying “but that’s another story.” The audience is left to fill in the blanks and to understand that Kenneth will always be different and scarred. But like in “Our Town,” he discovers that healing and hope can be found, both in community and in the kindness of strangers.

‘Primary Trust’

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 1 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Through Oct. 20

Where: La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, UC San Diego, La Jolla

Tickets: $39-$94

Phone: (858) 550-1010

Online: lajollaplayhouse.org