This is a difficult story not just for the reasons given in the play – the apparent implication that the rich man is damned only because he enjoyed a good life while Lazarus is sent to Paradise primarily because he suffered in this life, and the question of whether this was meant by Jesus to be a fiction or non-fiction account – but because it deals with the subject of damnation, which is not a popular one in many religious circles these days.
When I was a conservative Christian, we had no problems with Bible texts about hell (as you might imagine) but there were other texts that we found difficult and tried our best to explain away. Later, as an Episcopalian, I found once again that certain parts of the Bible were very aligned with what we tried to believe and live, while other parts were, shall we say, less popular. Both traditions had their problem passages – very different ones to be sure, but still, passages that they found it difficult to fit into their belief systems.
This is not an indictment of religious denominations, but a testament to the mystery we meet when we try approaching the meaning of the universe from any direction. We do our honest best to take in all of Jesus and see him as he really was, but there are always bits that get away from us. Anybody who thinks they know what the Bible teaches about the afterlife has only to read this story to be humbled again. (And even a little appalled, I would hope.)