The 1st Irish Theater Festival begins this season with Dylan Coburn Gray’s “Boys and Girls” at the 59E59 Theaters, a florid account of a night in Dublin. Ribald, lyrical and brisk (at 50 minutes), “Boys and Girls,” a Dublin Fringe Festival hit, renders in pungent language the contemporary adolescent and postadolescent experience in urban Ireland.
Four young people — described in the script as A (Male), B (Male), C (Female) and D (Female) — lined up on stools, take turns standing to tell their stories. Three recount an evening seeking romance, or at least physical companionship, while one (D) recalls staying inside with her boyfriend. Their evenings, only some of which involve sex, do not overlap. However, the four do echo one another in sequence with drinks downed in their perambulations. (“Is this my sixth?” “Six.” “Six.” “Six.”)
A (Ronan Carey) fancies himself a cynic but is lovelorn about an elusive and unseen Laura, for whom he pines: “If love is a sure and willful act of self-abnegation, Laura’s a sexy form of Zen meditation.” B (Sean Doyle) is a sensitive type: “No offense, ma, love you loads, da, but you molded me too wholesome, too winsome and then some.” The hardheaded yet vulnerable C (Maeve O’Mahony) endures a bittersweet encounter, while D (Claire O’Reilly), a blonde with grudging affections, resigns herself to predictable comforts. (“Love is not a kiss and a frisson of feeling, it’s someone who’ll aloe vera your sunburn when it’s peeling.”)
Mr. Gray, who also directed, has a sure ear for vernacular, weaving gutter slang and anatomical nicknames into a river of clever couplets. His actors, Mr. Doyle and Ms. O’Mahony in particular, are believable, though you wish their delivery would slow down at times to better savor their words. “Boys and Girls” is basically four monologues; it’ll be interesting to see these performers and this playwright work with more stage interaction. But if you’ve ever known a bleary, beery night at a Dublin club, this play will bring it back. Mostly in rhyme, no less.