The ghost story gets a naturalistic update in James Ijames’s new drama, Good Bones, which opened Tuesday at the Public Theater in a handsome, well-appointed production that matches the strong foundations of a play exploring how gentrification impacts communities in ways both large and small.

A young Black couple is in the midst of renovating a townhouse in a rapidly evolving section of an unnamed city. Travis (Mamoudou Athie, radiating intelligence and devotion) is a sharply dressed chef who’s opening a new restaurant, a bougie update on soul food whose dishes include things like “sweet potato pie foam” and “mustard green puree.” His wife, Aisha (Susan Kelechi Watson), has taken a job as a community liaison for a sports franchise planning to build a new arena, condos, and retail facilities on land currently occupied by public housing and the remains of a mostly Black neighborhood that she says “has been abandoned to decay and atrophy.” She should know. She grew up in one of those housing projects and seems eager to bulldoze a place she was eager to flee for a cushier life that yielded academic and career achievements — as well as a husband who grew up in suburban comfort and attended boarding school.

Aisha’s worldview is soon questioned in conversations with her contractor, Earl (Khris Davis), a blunt-speaking working class man who also grew up in the neighborhood (and who proudly calls it The Heat instead of realtor-preferred Dunbar). Initially enthusiastic to see a successful Black couple reclaiming a house once occupied by a local activist and the first Black woman on the city council, Earl bristles when learning that Aisha is driving the arena project that’s uprooting local businesses and longtime residents.

As their discussions continue, it’s clear that both sides have a point — and neither is an absolutist in their approach to questions of money, status, and community-building. After all, Earl has designed the fancy cabinet pulls that Travis prefers for the kitchen but that cost twice as much as the off-the-shelf kind. “Custom knobs are not exactly a community value,” Aisha points out. And Aisha may look and dress the part of a driven young career woman, but she rejected “new construction” homes across town for a fixer-upper in the “High Cotton” section of her old neighborhood. She also still remembers the drill routine she performed at the local high school — which she performs enthusiastically with Earl’s sister, Carmen (Téa Guarino), a recent graduate who seems to be following in Aisha’s path by pursuing a finance degree at the University of Pennsylvania.

How much do you give up in order to obtain the quality of life you desire? And what happens to those who don’t have the same privileges and opportunities? Ijames explores these questions in a series of lively exchanges that touch on the ways that even upper-middle-class Black lives can still be in danger. A traffic stop or a noise complaint about a summer block party can bring a disproportionate response from local authorities.

The past weighs heavily on Aisha and Earl, and it’s literalized in a series of otherworldly voices and unexplained occurrences, like a ball that suddenly rolls down the stairs by some unseen hand. Maruti Evans’s beautifully executed set design, which is peeled away in layers of plastic tarp that serve as a scrim in the opening scene, emerges as another character in the play — a figure of solidity and strength whose roots in the past cannot be completely erased with new wainscoting and fresh coats of paint. (The sharp lighting is by Barbara Samuels.) Dana Botez’s costumes and Krystal Balleza’s hair and makeup design also contribute to our understanding of how these characters present themselves to the world, reinforcing a telling discussion about vocal “code switching” as a means of preservation. (When Earl scoffs at his sister Carmen’s bougie turns of phrase, Aisha rightly calls him out: “You don’t have a gas company voice?”)

Under Saheem Ali’s thoughtful direction, the cast is uniformly excellent, maintaining a sense of good will even when the conversations becomes heated. Watson, with her flowing natural curls and supple voice, shines as a woman who sees herself as a kind of personal gentrification project. In her admirable desire for upward mobility, how much of her old self must she discard as well? Even in a gut renovation, she comes to realize, there may be some elements worth preserving. It’s about balance, and proportion, and keeping the things that truly matter close at hand.

My only quibble is with Ali’s handling of the ending, which strays from Ijames’s script in significant ways that undercut the play’s power by making the callback to earlier events too subtle. (At the very least, the final blackout should be restored before the rest of the cast emerges for the curtain call.)

GOOD BONES
Public Theater, Off Broadway
Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes (no intermission)
Tickets on sale through Oct. 27