The plot twists come fast and furious in the wild west of John Millington Synge's Ireland.

"The Playboy of the Western World" is a wicked comedy of rural life that veers with gusto between farce and tragedy, satire and romance, even while it sings with a gloriously earthy prose. Andrew Paul's full-bodied production for Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre in the intimate Heymann Theatre is a signal opportunity to enjoy the seminal play of 20th-century Irish theater, one of the great national theaters of the world.

But there's a reason beyond blinkered nationalism for the riots "Playboy" occasioned at its 1907 Dublin premiere. There are layers in its satiric picture of the credulous but canny country folk at which a defensive nationalist might well take umbrage, much as Obama supporters have been nonplussed by that New Yorker cover that has seemed to some to assert what it intends to attack.

Such is the danger of satire. Synge, of course, was freeing the rural Irishman from both comic caricature and sentimental stereotype, but the resulting portrait is as full of warts as wonders. So where does our sympathy fall?

What has always solved that for me and turned a great ethnic comedy into something more is the potential union between Christy and Pegeen, the timid adventurer and the yearning cynic. Both need a jolt to free their better selves, and each seems to find it in the other, creating the creative liberation that comedy celebrates.

Of course, that's not really what happens in "Playboy" -- enough said, since you should discover that for yourself.

But the shortfall of the PICT production is that the vista of possibility is not as bright as it should be because we never see Pegeen transformed with romantic possibility. As played by Mari Howells, she's a dour soul who never catches fire with the escape from a boring marriage and prudential servitude that Christy offers. Perhaps it's telling that her voice turns shrill when it speeds up.

Ultimately, "Playboy" is a comedy for Chisty and a tragedy for her, but that tragedy lacks bite because we're not shown a transcendent alternative. You can't fault Jerzy Gwiazdowski's Christy. He arrives a poor, timorous fugitive and then expands in the glow of credulous admiration, releasing his dormant charisma and skills.

The supporting roles are very strong. Derdriu Ring couldn't be bettered as the scheming Widow Quin, ready for romance but willing to bargain for whatever else she can get, with an animating glint in her eye and a laugh on her lips the whole time. (Listen to that rhythm: that's the contagion of Synge's mellifluous Irish-scented English.)

Martin Giles is equally strong as Pegeen's crafty father, the titular head of the shebeen where Pegeen dispenses liquor and holds sway. In Giles, Michael James' good nature and greed maintain a blustering comic stand off. Jason McCune captures the fretful comedy of Pegeen's priest-ridden suitor, Shawn, without slipping into excess, and Philip Winters is a stalwart Old Mahon, underplaying his great swings of fortune with restraint.

The two additional farmers and three village girls add energy and verbal color, especially the trio, whose frantic energy may strike some as over the top but seem to me just the crazy zest that Synge both laughs at and admires.

"Playboy" is just the start of PICT's ambitious Synge Cycle -- all seven of his plays staged in a month, which is why the "Playboy" schedule is so irregular.

PICT bolsters this first-ever achievement with a program full of supportive material compiled by dramaturg Ellen Mease. A key text she includes is Synge's preface to "Playboy," in which he says, "every speech should be as fully flavored as a nut or apple" and, "in Ireland, for a few years more, we have a popular imagination that is fiery, and magnificent, and tender."

He makes good on that. As the play says, "the heart's a wonder." PICT doesn't get the full range of that wonder, but the play sings nonetheless (pun intended).