By Mike Eaton / Staff writer

Thursday night, the Pitt-Greensburg Theatre Company presented “The House of Blue Leaves” to a packed house at the Ferguson Theater. Director Stephen Schrum sat behind the camera, recording the opening night for posterity and learning.

When the obligatory message came over the PA system, reminding the audience to turn off its collective cell phones, it was jazzier than expected – and as it ended, senior Chad Smith came out onto the floor of the theater, explaining how he was about to play for us on the electric piano.

In the opposite corner, Julian Critchfield and John White heckle him – for Smith is playing Artie Shaughnessy, a zookeeper-by-day who writes tunes that sound like the old standards by night. He shoos away his critics and asks for low lights and a blue spotlight; his desires go unfulfilled.

Living below Artie in their 1960s tenement, we learn, is a New York doll named Bunny Flingus, played by Ashley Peer, rocking an accent straight out of the city for the role. She dresses like a tramp, because she is one – a home wrecker to the highest degree. She even stuffs the newspaper into her go-go boots, so that she won’t get too cold as she stands on the street corner in October.

Bunny tells Artie that the Pope is coming to town, but he couldn’t care less; all he wants is for her to cook for him, like she’s always talked about, but all she’ll do is sleep with him. She doesn’t want to make that kind of a commitment.

Living with Artie, strangely enough, is his wife (Ashley Skye King in a virtuoso performance of insanity). Her name is Bananas; whenever she has an original thought, she is medicated, and Artie resents her hyperactive illness. Bananas and Bunny understandably don’t like one another, and Artie has to choose: Does he go off with Bunny to seek fame in California, or does he stand by his ailing wife? The answer to that comes easily enough – but circumstances beyond either of their control have brought their unbalanced former-altar-boy son (in a delightfully deadpan and creepy performance by Roy Gloeckl) back home from Fort Dicks, looking to say or do a thing or two to the Pope.

The play, by John Guare, is equal parts comedy and drama, and each member of the cast handles it differently. Smith is so personable that the role of lowlife Artie is a challenge; indeed, it is difficult to tell at first whether he is just misguided, or really a no-talent bastard (several later scenes prove the latter). When he and Bunny call up Artie’s old friend Billy Einhorn (Keith Harker) who is now in the movie business, he makes sure to downplay their mutual friend – his wife. A simple sulk onto a chair becomes one of the most poignant moments in the production thanks to King, a junior and veteran of the company. The timing on some lines could be quicker, but the cast knows what to say, and their confidence carries the humor through to counteract the darker elements that present themselves – more so in the second act.

There, we meet Billy’s star girlfriend, Corrinna Stroller (Molly DePree), the least of whose troubles in the play is that she’s lost her hearing aids, and has to improvise with what she thinks she hears. Also, since the Pope is in town, we meet three nuns who remind us of Larry, Moe and Curly (Justine Hawrylak, Helena Bickerstaff and Nina Schwer), and we even meet the Pope himself (played with a simple, yet effectively false Italian accent by Kevin Cline). Eventually, circumstances force Billy to Artie’s apartment – where Bunny finally gets to work her magic, and not as we might have expected.

Daniel Waajid makes a brief, but important appearance as a military policeman, and Sergey Blyakhor’s minute as The Man in the White Coat is one of the funniest moments in the play.

Without giving the end away, I’ll say that Artie finally gets his spotlight. I wouldn’t want it.

At just over two hours, “The House of Blue Leaves” is worth a night of your time, and $1 (for UPG students — $6 otherwise). It’ll be playing Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30 p.m. in Ferguson Theater.