Ali Benjamin's acclaimed 2015 young-adult novel The Thing About Jellyfish has now been adapted for the stage, and Berkeley Rep hosted the play's world premiere this week.

Adapted by playwright Keith Bunin, The Thing About Jellyfish centers on Suzy, a precocious middle-schooler with a passion for science who becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of her friend's accidental drowning death. Her friend, Franny, appears as a ghostly figure swimming in mid-air above the stage in the first of a number of stage effects in this show, and Suzy is primarily confused about how Franny, who was always an excellent swimmer, could drown while on vacation in Maryland.

The answer, or hypothesis, that she lands on is that Franny was stung by a jellyfish, one with a sting so brutal that it could incapacitate her. She researches, as part of a zoology project that she already has to do for a class at school, and finds a species of jellyfish native to Australia that has been responsible for deaths that were mistaken for drownings. And in the confused way of a 12-year-old, she goes about trying, through extensive internet searching and analysis, to explain how this jellyfish might have made it to the coast of Maryland — and simultaneously she is trying to figure out how she and Franny drifted apart as friends during sixth grade.

As Suzy, young actress Matilda Lawler — who you may have seen in a stellar performance on HBO's Station Eleven — gives a phenomenal performance here, essentially carrying the show for its one hour and 50 minutes. She spends parts of the first half of the show not speaking in the present day to her parents or teachers, stunned into silence after her friend's death, and Lawler skillfully transitions between these scenes and flashbacks in which she returns to Suzy as her normal, garrulous self.

Also excellent among a strong cast is Christiana Clark, who brilliantly oscillates between an array of roles including Franny's mother and Suzy's science teacher.

The direction by Tyne Rafaelli is quick-paced but careful around the most emotional beats of the action. But the true co-star of the show with Lawler is the dazzling projection design by Lucy Mackinnon, which gorgeously evokes oceans, aquariums, jellyfish (of course), and a dozen different interiors, in tandem with Derek McLane's slick set design.

The staging, with its many set pieces, ample use of the fly system, and the use of a lift in a trap in the stage to quickly make characters appear and disappear, can feel a bit chaotic — as if trying to make use of every last trick in the playbook, just for the sake of it. But some of this visual magic serves to distract, perhaps in a purposeful way, from the ultimate thinness of the play's message — this being based on a young adult novel, after all, it doesn't really plumb any adult-sized depths.

That said, it is a satisfyingly complicated piece of theater with a satisfying end, and one that all ages of theatergoers will enjoy — even if Suzy's final revelations are not too complex, and not news to the adults in the room.

'The Thing About Jellyfish' plays through March 9. Find tickets here.