‘Four Legs to Stand On,’ a play focused on the struggle to cope with a family member’s addiction, was performed in Portsmouth on Monday night and goes to Tiverton on April 26 and Newport on a yet-to-be-determined date.

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. — A one-act play performed Monday night at Portsmouth High School packed powerful messages about a family coming to terms with one of its member’s drug addiction.

About 35 people watched “Four Legs to Stand On” in the school library and then participated in a conversation with the cast, its playwright Ana Bess Moyer Bell and others. The play begins with Sam, a college student, returning home for summer break. His parents and sister, Sylvia, quickly realize something is wrong with him, but struggle to come to grips with his specific ailment and agonize over the change in his behavior.

After the death of one of his friends from a drug overdose, Sam confides in his family that he has been abusing drugs as an escape from a breakup with a girlfriend, failures in the classroom and as a coping mechanism as his father fights cancer.

The play left the audience without any answers about whether Sam, who was played by Cam Torres, accepted his family’s pleas for help and conquered his addiction. It touched on various themes, such as the stigma of addiction, the fight to get a loved one help, and how addiction can afflict all types of people.

Lt. Gov. Daniel McKee, who attended the event, said he has traveled throughout the state hearing stories about how the opioid crisis has hurt individuals and families.

Moyer Bell, who graduated from South Kingstown High School in 2006, said she was inspired to write “Four Legs to Stand On” after some of her peers died from drug overdoses. She is the founder and executive director of Creating Outreach About Addiction Support Together, the nonprofit organization that presented the play, along with CODAC Behavioral Healthcare, which provides drug treatment, recovery and prevention.

Two other public performances are scheduled — one on April 26 at 7 p.m. at the Tiverton Public Library and the other at a yet-to-be-determined date at the Jane Pickens Theater and Event Center in Newport. The play also will be performed for all 10th-graders at Portsmouth High.

“I feel that when you have to be silent about grief, it complicates it,” she said during the question-and-answer session.

Linda Hurley, the president and CEO of CODAC, stressed the potency of fentanyl-laced heroin. “This is not the heroin of three years ago,” she warned.

Carol Wilcox, whose son recently died from an addiction, said there must be interventions for middle-school students. She applauded the play for capturing the “chaos” addiction sows and showing the “range of emotions” expressed by the family.

Retired Portsmouth police officer Scott Sullivan asked McKee for the state to do more to fight the opioid crisis. “I’m going to beg you to find the money (to do more),” he said. McKee responded that he is a leading municipalities in filing a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical drug manufacturers and wholesale drug distributors, he argues, made the opioid epidemic possible.

McKee also mentioned education and conversations he is having across the state. “I think you’re going to find a great deal of support,” he said.