Between explosions, we eat, sleep, try to make sense of things, worry that we won't make sense of them before whatever impending threat has its way with us, and occasionally, relieve this tension alone or aided by others . . . others we've met after a cosmic coin toss that somehow permits us to connect, but could easily go the other way.

To this end, boom's Jules (Derick Loafmann) places a craigslist ad seeking a woman for "intensely significant coupling," although he's gay and understates the intensity and significance of said coupling. Jules is a marine biologist who, by observing the behavior of a quartet of damselfish, divines almost the exact moment when a meteor will strike Earth. Jules has big plans for the postapocalyptic human race and, like most of the best-laid plans, well, they often go awry.

Melissa Lynch's Jo, Jules' unwitting Eve, is another lowercase boom, flooding his lab with the explosive unpredictability of human nature. Foulmouthed and seething, neither nice nor compliant, Lynch nonetheless makes Jo an individual.

Meanwhile, docent/narrator Barbara (Susan Giddings) controls the proceedings by cranking old-fashioned gears and levers and stepping down from a red-curtained tech booth to halt the action and expound as needed.

Of recent Philadelphia theater productions referencing online social networking, Nachtrieb's play gets it most right. By placing the Internet on the periphery, he understands how we (rather unsuccessfully) use technology to impose artificial control over our increasingly chaotic and nature-averse lives. It's no coincidence Jules was warned of the meteor after months of staring at fish. This week, Theatre Exile premieres Nachtrieb's 2007 award-winning Hunter Gatherers. Aside from an excellent dramatic pairing, it's a chance to delve deeper into this playwright's Darwinian aesthetic.

Director Noah Herman and his strong cast serve Nachtrieb's play well - its disarming but incisive humor, existential dread and moving conclusions. Post-9/11 playwrights have had to deal with a lot - polar ice caps melting, weather attacking, cities drowning, the economy collapsing. But humans adapt. Nachtrieb, like Jules' fish, is a bellwether, asking us to pay attention before it's too late. And what if it's already too late? Well, he says, that might be OK, too - whether we're accompanied by Boom, boom, or whimper.