John Patrick Shanley’s superb 2005 drama “Doubt: A Parable” explored the scandal of abuse within the Catholic priesthood through the lens of a suspicious and determined sister in charge of a Catholic school in the Bronx in New York. The supremely concise play took place entirely through the lens of what for children are authority figures: a principal, a priest, a parent, a teacher. Kids were neither seen nor heard. Just discussed. The new play by Omer Abbas Salem, “Happy Days are Here (Again),” which is set at a Catholic elementary school in Chicago in about 1980 and had its world premiere Friday night from Chicago’s ever-courageous Steep Theatre at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre, pays homage to that precursor, not least in its portrayal of how abusers can be careful to groom their victims and to cover up their tracks with charm. But the big difference here is that the main focus in on the students. We see them in class; we see their attempts both to continue with their normal lives and get away from all of this; we see how fear courses through their young bones when the intercom crackles with a demand for one or the other of them to go to someone’s office, or to “confession,” or whatever other pretense is being employed by those who should be invested only in student wellbeing. I should note at this point that the cast of this excellent and unstinting premiere from Chicago director Azar Kazemi is made up entirely of adults, including several superb recent college graduates. And also that I found Salem’s drama to be one of most powerful new Chicago plays of this year, heck, most any year. It’s been haunting me all weekend as I write. The strengths of this piece of theater are many but the one that initially impressed me the most is how carefully and slowly Salem builds the level of horror inside this school, even as he articulates its apparent normalcy. The play has scenes that could be in “Mean Girls” or “The Breakfast Club” as the kids fight for the right to be teenagers. But the first key you get that something is up here is the informality of the teachers, their attempts to entice the students by being cool and hip themselves and the way they identify the loneliest and most vulnerable as the simplest prey. The abuse ring is perpetrated by males, as played by Eric Lindahl, Alex Gillmor and, with particularly venomous obsequiousness, Gage Wallace. So aside from watching the survival attempts of the students, without regard to gender, you also witness the attempts of the nuns at the school, played by Ashlyn Lozano, Katie Incardona and Patricia Donegan, to figure out what is going on and then do what they can for the students, who are played by John Zhou Duncan, Maya Hlava, Rich Adrian Lazatin, Oliver Maalouf, Carter Shimp, Yourtana Sulaiman and Jocelyn Zamudio. That turns out to be not much. But the choir sings through it all. I should note that this show is far from easy to sit through (I think it’s a little long and occasionally goes a smidgeon too far). This isn’t your usual content warning for the sensitive; it’s a note that you really have to up for what Abbas is trying to do here as he explores this topic through the lens of high-school genre drama with nods to horror tropes. That said, a dramaturgical note makes clear that some of the incidents in this play are based on real occurrences, including one suspicious disappearance of a nun who taught high school, along with the legion of incidents of abuse and cover-ups that now are all too familiar. Alex Gillmor, Eric Lindahl and Patricia Donegan in "Happy Days Are Here (Again)" by Steep Theatre. (Joseph Chretien-Golden)Carter Shimp and Maya Hlava in "Happy Days Are Here (Again)" by Steep Theatre. (Joseph Chretien-Golden)Katie Incardona and Ashlyn Lozano in "Happy Days Are Here (Again)" by Steep Theatre. (Joseph Chretien-Golden)Jocelyn Zamudio and Carter Shimp in "Happy Days Are Here (Again)" by Steep Theatre. (Joseph Chretien-Golden)Show Caption1 of 4Alex Gillmor, Eric Lindahl and Patricia Donegan in "Happy Days Are Here (Again)" by Steep Theatre. (Joseph Chretien-Golden)Expand Any serious Chicago theatergoer knows by now (or should) that Steep does nothing lightly and focuses intently on truthful, vulnerable acting. So it goes here. In one especially chilling scene involving Wallace and Maalouf, we see a student cutting his teacher’s nails. If you know the play (and movie) “Doubt,” you’ll know that’s a big plot point. I don’t know if Salem is making a deliberate reference but it felt like this much younger writer wanted to continue the conversation while throwing the focus on those who had to become survivors. Chris Jones is a Tribune critic. [email protected] Review: “Happy Days are Here (Again)” (3.5 stars) When: Through Oct. 27 Where: Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre, 1700 N. Halsted St. Running time; 2 hours, 15 minutes Tickets: $10-$40 at 773-649-3186 and www.steppenwolf.org