It’s a little wordy, but The Beaux’ Stratagem also contains some amusing moments, and at 2nd Story Theatre it’s sporting some real talent in the leads.

Don’t recognize the play’s title? That’s not surprising. The Beaux’ Stratagem is a fairly obscure Restoration comedy by Irish playwright George Farquhar, who died just weeks after the play premiered in 1707. Think of Farquhar as a latter-day Moliere, a lover of farcical intrigues and quick repartee.

In this case, The Beaux’ Stratagem follows the exploits of two rakes, Aimwell and Archer, who are down on their luck and set out in search of wealthy brides. One poses as a gentleman of means, the other as his servant, as they arrive in a small English village and stir things up.

Archer, who is pretending to be the footman, puts the moves on a sassy, gum-chewing Laura Sorenson, who is terrific as Cherry, the doltish innkeeper’s daughter. Sorenson has appeared in a fair number of dramatic roles at 2nd Story, but proved here she’s got the chops for comedy.

But the real sparks fly between Archer, a dashing Ara Boghigian, and Joanne Fayan’s Mrs. Sullen, the long-suffering wife of Squire Sullen.

Meanwhile, Tom Bentley’s Aimwell falls for Maryellen Brito’s sweet-tempered Dorinda, sister-in-law of Mrs. Sullen. He is supposed to be taking advantage of her, but in this case, love wins out.

The plot is pretty straightforward, but there are lot of twists and turns along the way. Although this play is about the charms of the opposite sex, Farquhar takes a pretty dim view of marriage. The Sullens have nothing in common but the desire to part. And in the end, they are granted what must be the world’s first no-fault divorce, clearing the way for the inevitable happy ending.

Again, the leads in this production directed by Ed Shea are solid. Fayan, as Mrs. Sullen, pretty much anchors the show. She’s a proven commodity when it comes to farce, but here she brings real dimension to the part, as she struggles with her feelings for Boghigian’s Archer. Boghigian, on the other hand, seemed right at home in the role of the seducer. Perhaps he was a little young for Fayan, but in the end that didn’t seem to matter.

Comic touches were provided by Ryan Maxwell’s Scrub, the high-strung servant with the missing tooth. And more wackiness came from Jonathan Jacobs’ zany Count Bellair, who also has the hots for Mrs. Sullen.

As always, Joe Henderson was smooth as Mr. Gibbet the thief.

But Tom Roberts was a little over the top as foppish Father Foigard, the licentious priest with the French accent and Irish roots.

Only in minor roles could duds be found.

For this production, director Shea has returned to the bare-bones staging he used a couple of years ago. There is no set, except for curtains hung in entryways so that characters can hide behind them. Otherwise, there is just an intersecting pine crosswalk for the actors to stroll about on, with the audience tucked in the four corners.

This way, Farquhar’s lyrical language is at the forefront, and the sightlines are at their best.

There are costumes, some dandy ones from house designer Ron Cesario, who has created a striking emerald green gown with leopard cuffs for Fayan. Boghigian prances about in a pink, wide-lapel jacket, denim knickers and basketball shoes.

Farquhar’s play is hardly a masterpiece, but it is fast-paced and pretty entertaining, the perfect thing for a summer night.

As much as sin rankled the Puritans when they came to power, hypocrisy — societal, personal, sexual — was the target of Restoration Comedy for twice as long after the prigs were driven out in 1660. One of the last of those social satires, George Farquhar’s 1707 The Beaux’ Stratagem, is on stage at 2nd Story Theatre (through July 26), demonstrating that England still hadn’t run out of phonies to skewer by then.

The play itself is so hastily constructed that Farquhar himself apologized for its unpolished quality, written in illness — he died two months after it premiered. The 2nd Story troupe roasts all of the chestnuts here in fine style, clichéd characters deliciously recognizable.

It’s a familiar story, with two roguish young gentlemen of flexible conscience coming to town to wive it wealthily, as the Bard put it. As tricky as they are, they are tricked in return, but by the end everyone learns their lesson and both marry for love. (For requisite happy endings, Restoration playwrights got a pass on being keen social observers.)

The two young men down on their luck are Aimwell (Tom Bentley) and Archer (an especially earnest Ara Boghigian). They’ve spent their wealth with their friends in the city. Now they have come to the country with their last 200 pounds, intending to take turns pretending to be the other’s servant, the better to impress the locals.

In condensing more than three hours down to two, including intermission, director Ed Shea has killed off the landlord of the tavern where they stay, giving his lines to Widow Boniface (Marg Cappelli). She and her comely daughter Cherry (Laura Sorensen) are in league with the aptly named highwayman Mr. Gibbet (Joe Henderson) and his minions, hoping to rob Aim-well and his purported servant. Cherry complicates those plans by falling in love with Archer.

For his part, Aimwell targets the wealthy Dorinda (Maryellen Brito). At first he intends to pretend to be enraptured by the beauty of any likely young victim at a church service, but despite himself he is actually smitten. Her mother, Lady Bountiful (Joan Batting), comes fully into play oddly late in this abbreviated version of the play, but she makes up in haughtiness what she lacks in duration.

The other principal characters are Mrs. Sullen (Joanne Fayan), Dorinda’s sister-in-law, and Squire Sullen (Mark Gentsch), who dislikes his wife as much as she does him. (Mrs. S.: “Spouse!” The squire: “Rib!”) Archer and Mrs. Sullen fall for each other, a complication for a lady of honor — the only sort worth having, even in libidinous Restoration days — since the squire is still in the picture. Farquhar’s last-scene solution is a Hail Mary pass, but it’s good for the goal.

With a stage-groaning cast of 16, there are plenty of characters to make fun of. My personal favorites, at the risk of being accused of promoting Freedom Fries, are the two Frenchmen. Jonathan Jacobs is Count Bellair, an officer and ingratiating opportunist who wields a silver tongue as adroitly as he would a fencing foil, were he permitted to use one. As Shea explained on opening night, captured officers were allowed the run of the town they were assigned to and could socialize freely with townsfolk. Entertaining mainstay Tom Roberts not only gets to put on a bullfrog-heavy Franch accent as Father Foigard, a womanizing French army chaplain, but also gets to bleat as a stage Irishman when the man’s false identity is discovered and he is threatened with hanging.

Yes, incidental characters in plays like this — which are, after all, merely comic opportunities strung together — can be a lot funnier than they look on the page. The servant Scrub, for example, is a stock character, trying too hard at times to be helpful, but Ryan Maxwell gives him a foxy alertness, an office intern’s eagerness to please, that eventually had my audience tittering sometimes when he appeared, even before he said a word.

As a play, The Beaux’ Stratagem is a slight effort. As an evening’s entertainment, 2nd Story Theatre has perked it up into a comedy worth seeing.

Irish playwright George Farquhar’s 1707 The Beaux’ Stratagem may lack the bawdy explicitness of a true Restoration comedy, but 2nd Story Theatre’s current production offers enough heaving bosoms, bare chests and ample bottoms to keep your attention when the wordy script becomes too cumbersome for words, which it often does.

This is especially true in the first act.

Director Ed Shea has his charges attempt to deliver their lines with rapid- fire efficiency; however, when you try to fire heavy shells through a small caliber rifle something is lost. In this case, a convoluted plot is made even more difficult by too much information being delivered in too little time.

And at the same time, the first act seems to drag. Shea has shown no reluctance to trim scripts in the past; some judicious cutting of Farquhar’s words undoubtedly would have helped the script play to a 21st century audience.

The play begins with two rakish, down-on-their-luck, upper-class Englishmen, Aimwell (Tom Bentley) and Archer (Ara Boghigian), arriving at roadside inn run by Widow Boniface (Marg Cappelli) and her daughter Cherry (Laura Sorensen). The two “gentlemen” have squandered their fortunes on booze, betting and broads and have consequently devised a plan to reverse their ill fortunes. The plan is simple: marry money, regardless of age, disposition, or for that matter, composition of the woman who has it.

Money is the key because a husband by English law acquires his wife’s property. So the two high class highwaymen go from village to village looking for suitable marital prospects, one masquerading as the servant of the other.

Bentley and Boghigian are a finely matched pair to carry out this ruse; both play their roles with a raffish flare that is at once sympathetic and appealing. You get the feeling that they really mean no harm; they just want to take advantage of the law of the land, which, of course, was written by men to benefit men. Is that such a bad thing?

Being a woman of the world, the Widow Boniface sees right through their subterfuge and directs Cherry to learn more about what the two gentlemen are up to. When Cherry tires to loosen Archer’s lips with ale, he attempts to seduce her, but she, as are all the women in the play, is too smart to be taken in or otherwise.

In the meantime, Aimwell finds his marital target in Dorinda (Maryellen Brito) the sister of Squire Sullen (Mark Gentsch) and sister-in-law of Mrs. Sullen (Joanne Fayan). Mrs. Sullen is trapped in a wretched marriage to a man who now controls what was previously her estate. Without him, she is ruined; with him she is miserable and unloved. While Aimwell is busy hustling Dorinda, Archer falls madly in love with the sullen Mrs. Sullen. Fayan does a miraculous job of maintaining her dignity and charm against the arduous demands of a demeaning husband and an ardent suitor. Her comic timing is flawless whether defending her virtue or denying it.

Ryan Maxwell pretty much steals the show with his portrayal of Scrub, Squire Sullen’s man- servant. He walks a fine line serving multiple masters in what is a masterful performance. Tom Roberts and Joan Batting are excellent as well in the roles of Father Foigard and the bodacious Lady Bountiful.

Ron Cesario’s period costumes and Ron Allen’s lighting design provide a dashing flair of substance to a show that is performed in the round on a bare stage. There is nothing wrong with a bare bones performance space; a good script when competently performed will hold up under pretty much any conditions, but Farquhar’s script, although a classic, doesn’t quite make the grade in this production.

In the end, love does not conquer all, but it conquers enough to provide a satisfying ending to an uneven show.

2nd Story Theatre’s latest production, George Farquhar’s 1707 Restoration comedy, The Beaux’ Stratagem, is a delightfully decadent, comical tour de force that combines the wit of Oscar Wilde, the eloquence of Shakespeare and the audacity of Molière. As part of 2nd Story’s summer series, the play is presented with minimal scenery and relies on intricate stage direction, impeccably orchestrated by Artistic Director Ed Shea, as well as the cast’s near flawless delivery of Farquhar’s ornate, rapid-fire dialogue.

On the surface, the story and its intertwining plots are nonsensical and arguably unoriginal. Two young men pose as members of high society to prey upon women of wealth who may be seeking husbands. In addition, a newlywed socialite is already having second thoughts about her marriage to a hard-drinking social climber. Furthermore, the boarding house where the two men touch ground to wreak havoc is owned and operated by a family of shameless grifters. What keeps this plot from falling victim to dismissal as recycled soap opera material is the playwright’s use of language, which is as clever as it is engrossing, the choreography of each character’s actions, both on and off stage, and the vast array of praiseworthy performances from the entire ensemble.

Tom Bentley and Ara Boghigian are a veritable Hope and Crosby as the conspiring duo, Aimwell and Archer, who manage to anger, amuse and enlighten the audience with highfalutin antics that don’t always work out as expected. Joanne Fayan is simply divine as the jaded Mrs. Sullen in a performance both comical and glamorous - reminiscent of Carole Lombard. While each supporting member of the cast is noteworthy, Ryan Maxwell is truly unforgettable as Scrub, the lonely, scatterbrained manservant with a keen sense of awareness whose words and actions demand our undivided attention.

The Beaux’ Stratagem is a figurative cool breeze of fresh air to be savored during the scorch of summer.