‘Skeleton Crew’ needs fine tuning but still motors

There’s no release valve for the tension in the auto plant break room in “Skeleton Crew.” So unremittingly does heat ratchet up that you might wonder what is it, exactly, that union line workers Faye (Margo Hall), Dez (Christian Thompson) and Shanita (Tristan Cunningham) and their foreman, Reggie (Lance Gardner), are fighting for.

Dominique Morisseau’s play, whose Bay Area premiere opened Tuesday, Jan. 30, at Marin Theatre Company, makes abundantly clear that it isn’t just jobs at stake for these Detroiters confronting the 2008 recession and rumors of their factory’s closure. (The show is a co-production with TheatreWorks, which will bring “Skeleton Crew” to Palo Alto’s Lucie Stern Theatre in March.