The difference between a romantic goodbye and an irrevocable farewell has rarely been more pointed than in See What I Wanna See, the Michael John LaChiusa musical that is the University of the Arts' contribution to the 2009 Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe.

With unclear motivation but the conviction of ritualistic sacrifice, a woman vows to kill her lover while in the throes of lovemaking - in the opening minutes of Act 1. Her male counterpart vows to do the same at the start of Act 2. Both are overtures of sorts, with only passing connections to what ensues: an Act 1 film noir-style story of murder in New York's Central Park recounted from multiple viewpoints, and, in Act 2, an atheist priest predicting an imminent public miracle as a perverse joke on the world.

"Truth, lies and faith," is how director Bill Buddendorf sums up his attraction to the Off-Broadway show, first seen in 2005 at New York's Public Theater, that has been making the rounds from Seoul to Stockholm and plays tomorrow through Sunday at the Caplan Studio Theater.

The impetus came from Charles Gilbert, head of UArts' Brind School of Theater Arts, because "LaChiusa is one of the leading voices of his generation" - and a voice heard infrequently in Philadelphia. Though LaChiusa was librettist for the 1992 Tania (about the Patty Hearst kidnapping) produced by what is now the Prince Music Theater, he's mainly known in local theater circles by First Lady Suite, which Buddendorf directed for Hoopskirt Theatre.

That breezy, semi-surreal look at presidential spouses, first produced in 1993, now feels a light-year away from See What I Wanna See, suggested by Akira Kurosawa's classic film Rashomon and sharp edged even by the standards of LaChiusa's often-confrontational, both in manner and content, oeuvre.

The set is beyond minimal, little more than chairs and a knife. But the music has always been the scenery for this show, which requires more instrumentalists (seven) than actors (five). Set during the 1951 U.S. premiere of the Rashomon film, Act 1 bristles with hard-edged bebop of the period. Unlike many musicals, its music is about neither characters in extended moments of inner reflection nor superfluous prettiness. "It's very actable and always moving the piece forward," Buddendorf says. "Everything in the piece is necessary."

So lean and swift is See What I Wanna See that actors were required to have everything memorized by the first rehearsal. LaChiusa's libretto and lyrics set scenes better than some designers: "A mist appears and hangs in the air," says one character, "like a spider's tears." Other descriptions plumb inner terrains that could never be externalized: "My life now is like a sentence in which every word seems to be missing a letter!" exclaims the atheist priest in Act 2.

LaChiusa, 47, broke out laughing when reminded of that line the other day in a cafe near his Upper West Side apartment. "My life is like that," he says. "I do feel like an alien sometimes."

Occupying the netherworlds of his genre as composer, lyricist, and librettist has often been uncomfortable, but life has been good lately: He's happily wrestling with The Arabian Nights in a commission from the Metropolitan Opera and recently wrote an epic adaptation of the Edna Ferber novel Giant for Signature Theater in Arlington, Va., the latter acclaimed as one of his most accessible efforts.

"I don't know what that means," he confesses. "It's no different . . . I don't think I'm doing anything new. I'm working with what I know. When I sit down to work on a new show, the first instinct isn't to do something revolutionary."

But in the 20 years since his early efforts - such as Triplets in Uniform and Buzzsaw Berkeley, continuing with Hello Again (1994), Marie Christine (1998), and The Wild Party (1999) - LaChiusa has learned to live with hot and cold receptions for his work.

In reviews for See What I Wanna See, normally assured critics obviously struggled with a piece that coolly spells out awful truths in a forum that typically serves a feel-good function. "There's an expectation that the musical is to be wildly entertaining and instantly accessible," LaChiusa says. "But at the same time, there's something beautiful about experimenting with it. It's an American art form and should allow for that."

One thing LaChiusa can't be accused of is pretension - which might have been inevitable had he been more faithful to the magisterial Rashomon that originally inspired him.

"I had to depart from it. You remain truthful by taking a leap away from it," he says. "You're telling things in a different way than you would in a play or movie. You'd never want to put the source material directly onstage. Then it's not theater. You see a lot of that on Broadway. What's the point?"

He's been true to his word: You could know Hello Again inside and out without realizing it's adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's 1900 play La Ronde. The ninth-century-Persia setting of The Arabian Nights will be updated to a more modern-day, torture-prone Argentina. Act 2 of See What I Wanna See is based on the 1920s Ryunosuke Akutagawa short story "The Dragon" but, in his hands, became a parable of post-9/11 New York City, the fallout being a priest who loses his faith but also a segment of society that's suddenly longing to believe.

"That's why we have Oprah and Dr. Phil. But there's no shortcut to God, no shortcut to faith," he says. "There's a tremendous responsibility to love God."

Such words may come as a surprise to those who know LaChiusa only from a public persona that earned him the nickname "Sassy Michael John" from his vocal muse, Audra McDonald. Behind his outspoken, hyperenergized demeanor is a man raised Italian Catholic in Upstate New York who - against the odds that come with unusually troubled parent relations - hasn't abandoned faith out of disillusionment with the church's stand on gays, which he can't abide by.

His shows, like him, have underlying layers that aren't immediately apparent. One is a fascination with timeless, archetypal women: "It's an Eve/Lilith thing." Much of See What I Wanna See was inspired by hours spent in front of the painted Japanese screens in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, observing their nonlinear storytelling and how opposing poles of existence - war and peace or yin and yang - are somehow resolved in the eye of God.

Few LaChiusa shows play with polarities as much as See What I Wanna See: In contrast to the piece's spirituality, characters salaciously discuss sexual anatomy. In that way, the show is made for a young UArts cast that's unfazed. "It's art school," says Gilbert. "We talk about that a lot."

Contact music critic David Patrick Stearns at dstearns@phillynews.com.