It sounds like a bad joke, but Beth Wohl’s Camp Siegfried not only is based in reality—it’s one of the most riveting American plays in years, now on stage in a superb production at by Philadelphia’s Theatre Exile.

Here’s the set-up: In 1938, a pair of high school students—known here only as “Him” and “Her”—find themselves in a Long Island summer camp. Surely nothing odd about that…

Except that Camp Siegfried, owned and operated by the German American Bund, was steeped in fascist ideology, and had as its intended goal preparing American teenagers to take their places in a “new order.” (As I said, Camp Siegfried was in fact a real thing, and lasted till 1940 or ‘41.)

Wohl’s fascinating and disturbing play derives much of its power from the simple act of overlaying a naïve narrative upon something much more sinister. For a little less than 90 minutes, we spend a few idyllic summer days and nights with a pair of teenagers—known only as “Him” and “Her”—embarking on a summer romance. It’s a familiar and often charming story, as they shyly share their secrets and insecurities, and begin to find what might turn into last love.

Sweet, right? And so it is. Till we gradually realize that both young people are moving deeper into Nazism.

It’s all the more disturbing because Wohl cannily keeps the darkness and hyperbole in check. It would be easy to describe the plot as centered on “radicalizing” young people… except that after seeing it twice, I’m still unsure whether Him and Her are embracing Nazism in a political sense, or whether they are children following their parents’ enthusiasms and simply drawn into the theatrics of a movement they don’t understand.

I imagine different audiences will reach different conclusions, but of this I’m certain—Whol’s work not only offers a startling view into a dark chapter of American history that is largely unkown—it’s also a marvelous if disquieting character study.

At Theatre Exile, Deborah Block’s quietly masterful direction finds all the nuances in Wohl’s script. Adam Howard is excellent as Him… and in the more complex role of Her, Jenna Kuerzi is absolutely superb—lovable and frightening in equal measure.

This is some of the strongest theater work I’ve seen in Philadelphia in many years. Camp Siegfried plays through November 12^th. If you can possibly attend, you should!