Janis Joplin’s career spanned four years and four albums (her final record, “Pearl”, was released after her death at age 27 of a drug overdose in 1970).

But in that short period, she became one of the defining voices of the 1960s, bridging the gap between blues and psychedelic rock and emerging as one of the greatest innovators in an era overflowing with invention.

Randal Myler’s 1994 musical “Love, Janis,” now at Actors Theatre of Louisville, is a smartly conceived and winningly executed look at those four years, picking up in 1966, when Joplin joined Big Brother and the Holding Company.
For the spoken text, Myler uses Joplin’s own words – occasionally raunchy, sometimes plaintive, but always vivid – as expressed in her interviews and letters home.

For the music, he and Sam Andrew (a founding member of Big Brother and the Holding Company) selected 19 superb examples of Joplin’s art.

Myler explores the multiple dimensions of Joplin’s life by employing two actresses. One portrays the brash and sexy singing Joplin (played on opening night by Katrina Chester, who alternates the role with Lauren Dragon). The other (Morgan Hallett) handles most of the spoken parts, portraying Joplin’s private, reflective side.

On Thursday night, they were a formidable pair. Chester, who played the role off-Broadway, didn’t so much mimic Joplin as inhabit her songs, howling and whispering through tunes like “Me and Bobby McGee”, “Ball and Chain” and a singalong version of “Mercedes Benz.” (It was a bit surreal to witness a performance of that power in the confines of a theater – Joplin herself surely never played to such a politely sedentary audience).

Hallett was just as fine in a lovingly crafted portrayal of the private Joplin, a naïve, star-struck young woman searching for community among the hippies of Haight-Ashbury who quick rose to stardom.

Combine those performances with the occasional whiff of incense, excellent musical accompaniment and Lorraine Venberg’s witty period costumes, and you have a production certain to win a piece of your heart.