Before I tell you why I think you should make every effort to experience Theater Mu’s beautiful, heartbreaking production of Diana Son’s drama “Stop Kiss,” I should provide some context for why it affected me so deeply, although I think you’ll find it meaningful no matter what you bring into it.

While I’ve been a Twin Cities arts journalist for decades, I have a full-time job for the first half of the year as a writer for the Minnesota House of Representatives’ journalistic arm, Session Daily. It’s a position that brought me into frequent contact with former House Speaker Melissa Hortman, who was killed this weekend. I’d long considered her to be one of the kindest people at the Capitol, someone who saw this life of public service as being all about helping those in need.

So I admit to attending “Stop Kiss” while working through a weighty sadness. But I believe this show could help a lot of people process their grief about the events of this past weekend and the choices we have in facing the world from a place of hate and fear or love and openness.

Mu’s “Stop Kiss” is a sweet romance wrapped in a tragedy, an intimate piece of realism in which Son’s remarkable ear for natural conversation is served by two extraordinarily subtle and well-crafted performances in the lead roles. And Gremlin Theatre’s little thrust venue is ideal for a play that works best at close range.

Set in pre-smartphone 1998, its story travels on parallel paths of before and after. On one track is the relationship of Callie and Sara, two women in New York City who meet through mutual friends and one’s need for a cat sitter. We watch their friendship blossom cautiously and awkwardly into something more, each gradually reconsidering their sexual orientations. Son successfully coaxes the audience into rooting for these two to find happiness together.

That might sound like a simple love story, but the other timeline makes it anything but. There’s been an assault, a particularly vicious hate crime perpetrated on the streets of Greenwich Village, and Sara is in a coma. Between police interrogations and hospital visits, we see the consequences of this cruelty, a conflicted Callie weighing the level of her commitment to a relationship that was just getting started.

As Callie and Sara, Emjoy Gavino and Kelsey Angel Baehrens bring a disarmingly lived-in feel to their characters, with layers of internal uncertainty, enthusiasm and self-discovery finding their way to the surface in their exceptionally natural exchanges. Director Katie Bradley has clearly emphasized the importance of small details in helping make these two women so vividly real.

They’re supported well by Clay Man Soo, Lily Tung Crystal, James Rodriguez and Moses Ekel, the 105-minute, intermission-less action taking place on a simple but effective Erik Paulson set.

Yes, “Stop Kiss” caught me in a tender place, but there’s a scene near its conclusion that I’m sure I would have found profoundly moving no matter the context, one that took to another level my admiration for the performances (especially Baehrens’). It broke through the guardedness that grief can build around our hearts, underlining my impression that this is a show that could prove emotionally valuable for a lot of people. Bring tissues.