The first time I saw hi-def TV was a hugely enthralling and disconcerting event. Last weekend watching “Spitfire Grill” at the Vintage Theatre in Aurora was much the same.

I was at a friend’s house a few years ago admiring a new, massive TV straight out of a Ray Bradbury short story, when the nightly news came on. There I was, just a few short feet away from some Denver TV personality, as if I’d pulled up a chair mere inches from her face.

“Wow. Even all that makeup can’t fill pores that big,” a friend quipped. While the experience was mesmerizing, it was distracting. Too much, too close takes away from the magic of TV lights, camera and action.

Similarly, the amazing performance of “Spitfire Grill” is distractingly larger than life, which is what good theater can be all about. It’s a big show filled with powerful performances by the region’s top talent on a giant set and a big cast in a teeny, tiny stage space that fit the show like skinny jeans on a body builder.

If you’ve never been, there are two stages at the Vintage Theatre’s newish Aurora digs. The small theater at the Vintage is more of a long hallway where three long rows of seats face an equally long and narrow “stage.”  Now the veteran casts and crews of the Vintage are no strangers to challenging spaces. Their previous home in Denver’s Uptown was also a tough, off-off-Broadway environment.

And despite Aurora’s small-stage limitations, the Vintage has rocked the space in the past, most recently with “‘Night Mother,” testing the limits — and winning. There’s a charm to venues like this that have made the Denver theater scene enthralling.

But “Spitfire” crosses a line, becoming a victim of the attenuated space.

“Spitfire” is a musical version of a story you’ve heard or seen. A movie, non-musical version has played late-night TV for years. A young woman fresh out of prison for a crime you’ll learn about later, lands in a rural, decaying Wisconsin town, looking for a new chance at life. Percy, lavishly spun by regional powerhouse Megan Van De Hey, lands a job at the tired Spitfire Grill, the only restaurant in a town faced with extinction. The town sheriff is her parole officer, who gets her a job with the aging and unhappy owner, Hannah, mastered by Anne Oberbroeckling.

While finding her way, uncomfortably, into the small community, she makes a new friend, Shelby, played with astonishing care by Kelly Watt. Shelby is an abused wife of the town real estate broker. The two create a scheme to have Hannah raffle off the grill in a paid essay contest.

The show itself is pretty light, despite some heavy issues surrounding abuse, murder, rape and desertion. It’s a journey about finding out what really matters in life, second chances and unfair judgments. The Hollywood-musical songs and score — yes, there’s a three-piece ensemble on top of the sizable cast and set — throw back to the equally quirky and entertaining “Cop Rock” from the late 1980s.

It’s a big cast, all with big, stand-out voices, including Nanci Van Fleet and Tom Auclair.  Colorado talent Mark Lively stuns the audience as Sheriff Joe, belting out a ride range of numbers, and keeping pace with the focus of the production: three powerful female leads dealing with three uniquely female crises.

Kudos not only to the stellar cast bringing this massive, hi-def wonder right into the audience’s lap, but also to director Bev Newcomb-Madden’s ingenuity  and set designer Laura K. Love’s rich set that includes a town, main street, porch, kitchen, dining room and a place way out in the woods, all in a space about the size of a a couple of box cars. Lighting by Jen Orf worked to offset an experience that moves beyond intimate into awkward, and helped keep the show on track.

Had the production been staged in the larger Vintage theater, the only thing furrowing brows would have been the oddly pantomimed diner food and coffee, the only mimed props in a show filled with them.

But even with the spacial distractions of this in-your-face, tight-fit production, the performances and synergy of this cast make it a must-see for this year’s regional summer stock.

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“Spitfire Grill”

Through Aug. 16 at the Vintage Theatre, 1468 Dayton St.

Tickets $28-$32; 303-856-7830 or www.VintageTheatre.org.

Shows on Fridays, Saturdays and Sunday matinees. Also Thursday, Aug 13. Curtains at 7:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.