The first play of the School of Theater and Dance’s production season, “The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence,” is a complex story about how people are empowered through their connections with others. As Thomas Watson wonderfully puts it, “We must look to others to supplement our strength.”

Time is a slippery thing in “The Watson Intelligence.” The play skips across centuries and funnels its themes of human connection and communication through the lens of three people who exist in multiple eras simultaneously.

There’s the invention of the telephone, a case of mysterious body markings in Holmes-era London and the creation of an Artificial Intelligence in 2011 coming together in this time-warping story. Madeleine George’s script finds the connective tissue between these seemingly incompatible events while still retaining a sense of humor.

The play is centered by the empathetic Watson, played by second year MFA student Joe Edward Metcalfe. Watson is always eager to assist others and Metcalfe amplifies his good-natured charm. It’s a performance made all the more impressive considering he’s juggling four versions of one character.

On the other end of the spectrum is Merrick ­— portrayed by Joel Ottenheimer, second year MFA student — a man whose passion and intensity threaten to incinerate his closest relationships. Merrik is made out to be the villain of the piece, but Ottenheimer brings a sense of loneliness that suits the troubled man well. The actor also gets one of the highlights of the play in the form of a mind-bending monologue that requires on-stage costume and accent changes that he pulled off with poise.

In between Watson’s and Merrick’s emotional extremes is the smart and sexy Eliza, played by second year MFA student Emily Vitrano, a programming genius with dependency issues. In addition to having the most complex character in the play, early on Vitrano has to deliver speeches with the linguistic density of cement bricks, which she pulls off with ease.

Every member of the cast needed to pull double overtime for this one. Wardrobe changes were used to visualize jumps in time and some of them had to be executed within seconds. Simply being able to hit all the cues without any discernible mistakes is an achievement for the company.

The largest weakness of the play comes from the first act’s writing. Some of the early speeches, especially Eliza’s, are unnecessarily long-winded. It’s as if George is more interested in showing off how quick-witted her characters are instead of letting them breathe and grow naturally. The dialogue rambles a bit in a few other spots as well, but everything locks into a nice groove about 30 minutes into the play.

The last act does some really fascinating things with time and spacing. The walls between time lines start to break down in front of the audience; characters and conversations throughout history start to bleed across each other. It’s easy to imagine theatre students studying the temporal tricks of “Watson Intelligence” for a long time.

It isn’t perfect, but “The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence” is a wildly ambitious play. Its unorthodox and technical nature might be a bit left-of-center for some, but the cast and crew pull it off.