To borrow from “Star Wars’” most quotable Sith, Darth Vader, Dael Orlandersmith’s new play gives audiences a chance to look into the real dark side.

As “Bones” opens this weekend at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, Orlandersmith, who just closed her one-woman show “Stoop Stories” there, isn’t going to physically appear in the new production.

She is aware, however, that due to its graphic nature, audiences will either really take to the script, “or they’re really going to hate my guts.”

The press releases about “Bones” do the show no justice — but that’s for a reason, the playwright said this week in a telephone interview from New York. “I want people to be surprised when they see it,” she said.

After a detailed description of the show’s premise, and the dark side of her characters’ lives, secrets and anxieties, Orlandersmith spoke freely on what motivates her to explore such themes.

“It’s always been that kind of work, I’ve always drawn to that kind of stuff, I like to call it dark beauty,” said Orlandersmith, who recently had another piece, “HorseDreams,” rejected by another theater because of its subject matter.

“I’ve always liked that kind of edgier work opposed to the sun shiny pastel-colored stuff you see a lot of out there.”

For this reason, she said, she applauds the Center Theatre Group artistic director Michael Ritchie, because of his history of taking chances on new work.

“There aren’t many [who] are taking a chance on new plays, it’s all become about commerce, you either have an old play, a revival with a name director or a name actor, or you have a lot of escapisms — like the ‘Addams Family’ and ‘Spider Man’ in New York — that’s way over budget if you ask me,” she said. “It’s all become about commerce, movies turning into plays, like ‘Hairspray,’ you have someone like Scarlett Johansson who wins a Tony. She’s not a stage actor … you have people she was nominated with who have been on stage [for years]. I’m not saying she’s bad, I’ve heard she’s good. But the reason she’s there is to draw money — it’s about commerce.”

Her own work, which pushes envelopes of every size and shape, is meant for audiences that “still want to be challenged,” said Orlandersmith.

Directed by Gordon Edelstein, the cast of “Bones” features Khandi Alexander, Tessa Auberjonois and Tory Kittles. It tells the story of a mother and her grown children, a family unable to move forward from a damaged past. As graphic accusations come to light, the story treks between divergent memories of the children and their mother. It becomes so intense, said the playwright, that “you can almost feel their angst in your bones.”

The story is about a dysfunctional family, but what may surprise audiences, is that Orlandersmith, who describes herself as a Black American of Caribbean descent, wrote with a diverse cast in mind.

“It’s written in a way where any race can relate to it,” she said. “If we are talking about universalism, you have to be honest. Here you have this Black woman who has one kid who is Black and another who is White, and — guess what? — it’s biologically possible. … I did it this way, because if we are gong to move toward universalism, we need to put it into theater.”

Even the most perfect families harbor some form of dysfunction, she said. “A lot of times when families are really screwed up, no one will cop to the truth,” she said. “It’s like a lot of times, during arguments … no one can agree because there is a disjunction … and because of the hurt and the dysfunction that is happening … and things can get so bad … it’s far-fetched because no one can remember what the hell went wrong, because they’re filled with so much pain and angst.”

Had she written “Bones” with an all-Black cast, then people would assume that “this only happens to Black families,” she said. “But that’s not the case at all, it happens to all of us. … Aside from the universalism, this reality has a dark side,” she added. “This happens to a lot of families … this is the type of stuff that is real, that is universal.”

Orlandersmith also said that while she writes for all audiences, she takes care not to take away from anybody’s “authenticity, ethnicity or race.”

“I’m just looking at things that are universal, just human … because I am interested in the darker side of human nature. We can’t go through life thinking there aren’t two sides — a bright side and a dark side.”

Maybe “Bones” isn’t for young audiences, but in a lot of ways Orlandersmith does want to reach out to parents and ask them how they are raising their children. Are they raising them to be individuals as opposed to being extensions of their parents?

“You have to have sunshine and rain if you want plants to grow, you can’t have one without the other,” she said. “It’s the same in human nature. I think a lot of times people [while growing up], are denied access to the dark side, people, parents shield them from it, and they want their kids to grow up knowing the reality they want for them. But it’s not really reality.”

“Bones” opens July 31 at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City, and runs through Aug. 8. (213) 628-2772