Two perceptions battled within me regarding Pig Iron Theatre Company's restaging of Mission to Mercury, which the eclectic no-longer-kids from Swarthmore College first workshopped in 2000.

One was anticipation, because Pig Iron never fails to surprise and delight with their innovative, multidisciplinary works like Shut Eye, Anodyne, Flop and last month's revival of Gentlemen Volunteers.

The other was dread, because the music of '70s glam-rockers Queen careens me back to high school horrors, which are soundtracked in my nightmares by "We Will Rock You," "We Are the Champions" and other disco-era pop slop.

Fortunately, anticipation overcame trepidation, and I was richly rewarded. Mission to Mercury employs some Queen songs—the most famous are "Killer Queen" and "Another One Bites the Dust," but in wildly different interpretations—as a springboard to an amusing, provocative theatrical adventure.

The show begins as we're led onto Drexel's stage, where Pig Iron is celebrating their 10th anniversary with a five-play residency: two roadies, played by Geoff Sobelle and Gabriel Quinn Bauriedel, scramble to set up a concert. They crawl over, under and through the crowd, enlisting people to untangle cords and duct-taping patrons into their seats.

Other characters emerge, all singing: ghostly vaudevillians who use the empty theater—we're sitting onstage, facing out—as a playground for music director James Sugg's fascinating interpretations of Queen songs, which are neither tribute nor pastiche. Christie Parker and Sarah Doherty vocalize an amusing "Radio Ga Ga"; Dito van Reigersberg assails "Killer Queen" soulfully, backed by guitarist Bradford Trojan; and Sugg, playing accordion as a sinister master of ceremonies, ties the shenanigans together with "Play the Game," eerily reciting the musical mantra, "Open up your mind and let me step inside."

A climax of sorts occurs when Sobelle's roadie is enveloped in the mysterious doings and, donning a red dress and feather boa, belts out a torchy "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy."

The fun is in the details, from Doherty dangling upside down above empty seats singing "Under Pressure" to the roadies' slapstick walkie-talkie miscommunications. But, as always with Pig Iron and director Dan Rothenberg, beauty trumps laughs: Mission to Mercury is filled with tiny moments of achingly detailed grace, lovely surprises that leave us gasping in wonder even as we fall in love with the show's sad-sack heroes.

As Queen frontman Freddie Mercury—now a poet in my mind—wrote profoundly in "Radio Ga Ga": "You made 'em laugh/ You made 'em cry/ You made us feel/ Like we could fly."

MISSION TO MERCURY Through March 4, Pig Iron Theatre Company, Mandell Theater at Drexel University, 3210 Chestnut St., 215-627-1883, www.pigiron.org