The overly curious will find much to be frustrated about as Theresa Rebeck’s tale of the seamy side of philately (stamp collecting!) unfolds in the suspenseful “American Buffalo”-flavored “Mauritius,” now playing at Capital Stage.

“Are they real?,” “How much are they worth?,” “How much are you willing you pay?” and “How much will you take?” are about the limits to the questions presented by the quintet of players who stand to gain – and lose – in this entertaining if unlikely tale of familial entitlement and greed gone awry.

But so many more questions come to mind that one’s left with a story that boasts more perforations than the “stars” of the show: a fabled pair of stamps that are – like David Mamet’s “Buffalo” and Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon” – “the stuff that dreams are made of.”

The stamps, the legacy of a recently deceased mother (by way of her dead father-in-law), are a sticking point between half-sisters Jackie (the very, very good Kristine David) and Mary (Lauren Bloom), who have reunited after years of estrangement to settle the estate.

Mary, a tool of a big sis whose grandfather was the stamps’ original owner, wants to hold onto the little squares of poorly printed paper (“It’s the errors that make them valuable.”), while young Jackie wants to sell them to gain the fresh start she so dearly desires after years as a cloistered caregiver.

It’s that desire that leads Jackie to the dark and dusty stamp shop of the nerdily pedantic Philip (John P. Lamb), whose disinterest in her closely clutched album of gummy treasures breeds the first of many queries in the mind of the audience: “How is this guy in business?”

His apathy toward his potential customer is not shared by the store’s other visitor, Dennis (the also worth-the-price-of-admission Kurt Johnson), a petty scammer who is drawn to Jackie perhaps for her comely looks if not for her obvious knowledge of stamps (which seems to be more important to Philip than customer service – or Windex).

“Does this look like ‘Antiques Roadshow’?” Philip sarcastically quizzes Jackie before taking a too-quick study of her album.

Dennis’ subsequent look at her book quickly calms his tics and itches (of which there are many), as he zooms in on the on the very rare and very valuable pair of Mauritian stamps.

Thus begins a quest to acquire the stamps by hook or by crook – the “crook” being in the form of the imposing and frequently menacing Sterling (Jonathan Rhys Williams), a business associate of both Dennis and Philip whose dubious history as an importer/exporter of everything from collectibles to weapons of mass destruction prompts a whole other set of questions from “Where did he get that cool facial scar?” to “Isn’t there a clean, well-lighted stamp store in this city?”

While many references are made to the power of the information superhighway in Rebeck’s play, no one seems to have heard of Google, or even the Yellow Pages.

When Dennis presents his discovery of Jackie’s stamps to Sterling, it seems to crank his gangster personality amplifier to “11,” resulting in a nonstop series of off-the-hook (and, frankly, distracting) behaviors that include hand-slamming, cheek-chewing, fist clenching and over-annunciation that makes even musical-comedy caricatures like “Guys and Doll’s” Big Jule seem like subtle portraits of restraint.

The biggest question is after having distanced herself from her mother and half-sister for years (never minding to take “her” stamps with her, or even ask for them), why the desperate Jackie even bothered to tell her the stamps were even among her effects. Why not just play dumb and if they were brought up, just shrug her shoulders?

But whatever shortcomings Rebeck’s script may have, director Michael Stevenson’s cast largely overcome them with gritty (if sometimes overly arch) performances that alternate between funny and frightening, and keeps one in the moment while rooting for the unlikeliest of suspects.

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WHAT: Capital Stage presents the Sacramento premiere of "Mauritius" by Theresa Rebeck

WHERE: Delta King Theatre, 1000 Front St., Sacramento, Calif.

WHEN: Oct. 15-Nov. 7, 2010; 7 p.m. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays; 7 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays

TICKETS: $26-$33

FOR INFO: Call 916.379.5051; www.capstage.org

WHO: Featuring Lauren Bloom, Kristine David, Kurt Johnson, John Lamb, Jonathan Rhys Williams; directed by Michael Stevenson; set design by Stephen C. Jones; lighting design by Ron Madonia; costume design by Nancy Pipkin; sound design by Brad Thompson

photo courtesy of Capital Stage/Charr Crail