A ballsy show in more ways than one, Island City Stage's Octopus explored the potential perils of unprotected sex through a surrealist conceit that would make Eugene Ionesco proud. It starts with a shockingly frank orgy involving two male couples, their sexual maneuvering choreographed like a ballet. But the weirdness comes later, in the aftermath of the encounter, when one character apparently takes up residence at the bottom of the ocean and sends cryptic missives to his friends and lovers through a creepy telegraph boy. Andy Rogow's fearless direction plunged into depths few theater companies would dare explore, resulting in a groundbreaking drama that was strange, visceral, and altogether physical, from its many-tentacled tangle of nude flesh to the realistic brawls of its climactic finish, staged in and around a pool of water. Those in the front row could have been warned they'd be sitting in a Sea World-like splash zone, but that would have dampened the show's immersive excitement: We were all in it together.