Angela Reed, Kevin Oliver Lynch, Kate Burton, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, and Brenda Meaney Photo by Carol Rosegg

The title refers to the Irishtown Players, a venerable Dublin troupe. They recently had a major success, The Happy Leper of Larne, and they're huddled, on Colm McNally's utilitarian set, around the first table reading of the newest play by Happy Leper's author, Aisling (Brenda Meaney). We also see posters for past productions of The Weir, Dancing at Lughnasa, and other familiar titles; how different are Irishtown and Irish Rep, at that?

A lot of exposition is rolled out right away, and admittedly, it's something of a chore to sit through, though without it the payoffs wouldn't pay off as much. Aisling is bubbling over: Her new play, Who Are We If We Are Not Ourselves at All, is already headed for Broadway in a few weeks, with this cast and director. Which seems a bit of a stretch, but roll with it. The cast: Síofra (Saoirse-Monica Jackson), a rising Irish ingenue and Aisling's lover; Constance (Kate Burton), a veteran who's worked fairly steadily but never risen as far as she expected; and Quin (Kevin Oliver Lynch), an alpha male asserting his masculinity in uncomfortable, if not ill-intentioned, ways. He deems himself a master of accents, though those accents turn out to be South Dublin, North Dublin, and Derry–which he tries on for a while, hilariously and unintelligibly. The director is Poppy (Angela Reed), the only Brit among them, recently dismissed from the Royal Shakespeare Company for unsavory reasons we'll soon discover.

So, the usual enthusiastic words following a first read: Who Are We is "propulsive," it's "great," "seminal." But that's within the playwright's earshot. Aisling retires to the theater office to field a phone call from the American producer, and the daggers come out. Why did she set this one in Hertfordshire? Why is the play, about sexual assault at work, so laden with legal jargon? And why isn't it, you know, more Irish? As Quin puts it, "Where's the lyricism? Where's the backward syntax?" Or Constance: "Where are the rolling hills, where is the bar, why is everyone alive?"

And we're plunged into a rollicking Hibernian backstager, with the personal and professional conflicts piling up to the point where Aisling pulls her play, to the cast's and director's horror. They have a contract, they have to bring something into New York. So, Quin suggests, why don't they slap the Who Are We title on an improvised Irish play? "I've been in a million Irish plays, I can pump the audience so full of Ireland they'll have shamrocks coming out their noses."

And that sets the stage for the quartet's efforts to cobble together an Irish play out of all the standard elements, Smyth's real satirical target. Incest? Gotta have. Alcohol? A must. Potato famine? Why not. As the actors spout out improvised soliloquies and dialogues, we're treated to some jovial parodies of the Irish canon. There's a fine sendup of Enda Walsh's The Walworth Farce and Beckett's Play, complete with Quin in an urn. A little O'Casey, a little O'Neill, a dash of Friel–all with the backward syntax Quin so craves, and the heightened lyricism that becomes, in this context, quite funny. The troupe tries several premises, but all roads lead back to sexual assault, such is the Irish play.

In the process, we get to know these actors better. Síofra, while ambitious and self-centered, comes up with unusual psychological insights, always punctuated with, "or something." Quin can't help asserting his male prerogative. Constance, with decades of experience and not enough to show for it, has anger issues (Burton might want to dial down on the anger). And Poppy, always attempting to be the peacemaker, finally explodes, because, well, these effing Irish.

There are minor character contradictions and plot implausibilities (why would Aisling insist on a British setting, and her late-revealed past history with Quin doesn't add up), and a last-minute deus ex machina that's hard to buy, but you'll probably be having too good a time to strongly object. A lot of the credit goes to the actors, with Jackson exuding up-and-coming-actor calculation, Meaney a writer's fragile ego, Reed a director's well-worn and eroding coping mechanisms, and Lynch the awkwardness of being the only male in the room. Caroline Eng's sound design is blissfully natural, not a face mic in sight, and punctuated by some energetic drum riffs between scenes. Orla Long's always-appropriate costumes were more work than you first realize, with the cast changing outfits at every interval. And Nicola Murphy Dubey's direction keeps the emotions high and maximizes the movement, a challenge when you're staging a table read.

Irishtown, while it does have something on its mind–the sameness of themes in Irish drama, and audiences' unwillingness to accept anything beyond them–is inconsequential, and it takes a while to get started. But it did make me laugh out loud several times, something relatively few Irish plays across the years have ever managed to do. On purpose, at least.