Moons over Buffalo, or My Hammy?

Of all theatrical genres, perhaps the most difficult to create and sustain is the farce. To maintain the outward appearance of off-the-wall craziness of a good slapstick comedy requires the most intricate preparation and impeccable timing.

Even when properly prepared, the finished product might suffer from the inadequacy of the material at hand. When both script and interpretation are hitting on all cylinders, however, audiences are in for a treat ? one example being the Huntington Beach Playhouse’s current production of “Moon Over Buffalo.”

Playwright Ken Ludwig, a Harvard-educated lawyer, specializes in backstage comedies with intricate physical demands set a half century or so in the past (“Lend Me a Tenor,” “Twentieth Century”).

With “Moon Over Buffalo,” he struck the mother lode of wackiness with a script so zany the original Broadway producers recruited Carol Burnett for a leading role.

The Huntington Beach production, gleefully and meticulously directed by Earl Byers, is very nearly as exhausting an experience for the audience as it is for the industrious actors.

Few opportunities are passed over for sight gags or cutting, offhand remarks, and Byers gleans as many laughs from character-driven situations as he does from the pure physical funny business that packs every page of the script.

The setting is backstage at a rundown theater in Buffalo, N.Y., in the early 1950s. A husband and wife acting team are playing “Private Lives” in repertory with “Cyrano de Bergerac” and waiting for that big break that might land them back in the limelight. It might be imminent, with Frank Capra en route to view a performance ? if only they could remember which of the two plays they’re performing.

Robert P. Purcell, an unusual physical choice for the role of the hammy leading actor, thrusts himself into the assignment with elevated, and exhausting, gusto. Purcell even makes his short, rotund stature pay off in the play’s numerous physical scenes as he flails around drunkenly ? in the wrong costume ? for the assignment at hand. It’s a hilarious interpretation.

His co-star wife, infuriated by his rendezvous with an ingenue, is beautifully interpreted by Rose London, who exhibits a classic stage voice and a splendid affinity for physical comedy. London projects a performer with talents far beyond the demands of western New York and the ambition to follow her dreams.

As their daughter, born in a trunk but desperately seeking a more normal life, Amy Rutledge is captivating, a stunning beauty rudely thrust into the family business. Scott Brown is quite capable as her former fiancé who’s carrying a Statue of Liberty-sized torch.

Rutledge’s current flame, a nerdish local TV weatherman, receives a fine low-key interpretation from A.J. Guitierrez, who underplays as effectively as the others overdo. (By the way, Spike Jonez called. He wants his suit back.)

Subtlety may be in short supply in “Moon Over Buffalo,” but for those out for an evening of virtually uninterrupted laughter, the Huntington Beach Playhouse has your ticket punched.