Attack Theatre is spending a "Year on Wheels" this season, alluding to the company's move to the Pittsburgh Opera in the Strip District. But, for its official debut Monday at the opera's urban chic facility, Attack stayed close to home ... in a sense.

"Incident[s] in the Strip" is a "free-wheeling" program in which the Attackers swallowed everything in the neighborhood around them and spit it out in a smart, funny and engaging program, one of their best ever.

The "incidents" include choreographed interactions that might be found along Penn Avenue and Smallman Street, translated as life, love, force, karma, sexuality (stripping, of course) and more.

Pittsburgh Opera also pipes a musical brew into the facility, and "La Traviata" inspired musical mastermind Dave Eggar's terrific score. (The poster for the same opera can be found in the women's restroom.)

The company used the exposed-brick performance space to the max. Eggar began the evening by playing his cello on the stairs leading to the wrap-around balcony where the band, with guitarist Tom Pirozzi and percussionist Charles Palmer, held court for the first half.

There was another set of wheels on display as Palmer expertly took to floor on his skateboard amid the opening dance. The Attackers were in a playful mood, bouncing and weaving in Strip pedestrian fashion. They parlayed that into a series of encounters -- Liz Chang and Dane Toney in a lover-ly mood, Michele de la Reza and Ashley Williams bent on confrontation, then Williams with Toney and Peter Kope in a menage a trios, full of skillful twists and some risky backward rebounds from Toney.

De la Reza and Kope played on the "La Traviata" theme with an unusual contemporary waltz (for modern dance, at least) and tinged it with Violetta's trademark fainting spells.

The audience watched it all from risers. But during the intermission, the Attack crew moved all of the chairs onto the dance floor and the performers became the "audience" on the risers.

They entered in formal, opera-style black. After plenty of "excuse me's" and seat swapping, they watched a dance performance from a bare-footed Eggar, no less.

Then the stripping began, literally and figuratively. The dancers removed their formal attire and, at the same time, began to move from a more formal to an informal theatricality. They used movement elements from the first act, particularly in a "caged" number, and teased with sexuality (behind screens), a little bathroom humor and some strategically placed newspapers.

The band became an integral part, more acoustical in keeping with the operatic flavor. Eggar moved from dance to barefoot piano playing (was that the "Muppet" theme?) to a series of increasingly smaller violins, all played cello-style. Ultimately he was suffocated with admiration from the other performers until he was flat on his back, still playing his instrument.

Palmer played a plastic bucket, bicycle wheel and other assorted "found" objects, while Pirozzi watched over the action from the balcony, like a benign musical god.

The ongoing integration between movement and music occasionally made for a three-ring circus atmosphere, where it was difficult to find the focus of the action. But it's hard to hold back Attack Theatre's formidable creative instincts and the group's fans wouldn't have it any other way.

So what could be next? Perhaps take this sophisticated partnership to another level with a real commissioned opera, Attack-style.

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