A play about life in the theater, a life full of ups and downs and in betweens, is sometimes a shaky thing, trying to connect with an audience that may or may not have the inside knowledge that you need to get all the jokes.

Such is the case of "It’s Only A Play," the Terrence McNally play that opened Thursday night at Dale Gutzman’s Off the Wall Theatre.

The 1982 play, which enjoyed a successful revival in 2014 with reunited "Producers" stars Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, is the ultimate insider’s guide to what it might be like on opening night.

The play is set after the curtain has gone down and the wait for the reviews has begun. Waiting for the verdict are the playwright (Mark Hagen), the female star (Marilyn White), the producer (Laura Monagle), the director (Jeremy C. Welter), the playwright’s best friend who stopped doing theater in favor of a regular television series (Randall T. Anderson), the most feared critic in New York (Lawrence J. Lukasavage) and the young boy actor who has just arrived in the big town (Patrick McCann).

The hallmark of this play – the real one not the one in the play – is the frequent name dropping of celebrities ranging from Kelly Ripa and Bernie Sanders to the Pope and Donald Trump to Al Pacino and Bernadette Peters. It’s highbrow camp, and the opening night audience chuckled along with each and every dropped name.

The roars finally arrived with the appearance of White as Virginia Noyes, once a Broadway actor who moved to Hollywood where her off-screen life made steady fodder for the tabloids. Hollywood had enough of her, so her return to the Great White Way was eagerly anticipated – especially by her.

White has never been funnier. She is a coke-sniffing, utterly profane bundle of insecurity gripped by hope and an ankle bracelet so her probation officer can keep track of her. Noyes exists in some alternate reality, one created out of her dreams and nightmares. That reality is home to each of these characters.

If there is a thrust to this play, it is the pondering of the role of the critic and the pandering to the role of the critic. It seems ruthless to have the future of so many people dependent on the opinion of one person who has a pen or a television mic or a computer keyboard.

In fact, life in the theater can be ruthless. Actors are many, and jobs are few and only temporary, at best. "Did he like me?" is the tattoo on the mind of every actor. Somebody once said that the hardest job for any actor is getting a job, and the truth of that doubt is never more apparent than in McNally’s play.

Hagen’s playwright rhapsodizes at length about his art and his search for a truth that can carry an audience along with him. Monagle loves being the lady with the bucket of cash breathing life into the blimp that is waiting to take flight.

Leading into all of this is the McCann's doofus, who is determined to be a Broadway actor despite the fact that he has no idea how to go about it and apparently no talent for the job at all. McCann is very funny as he tries to cater to and juggle all the wild personalities gathered in this room.

At two and a half hours, with an intermission, there is a lot of theater crammed into this performance. When the play is funny – and it is very, very funny – it moves along. But like everybody who works in the theater, McNally also spends an inordinate amount of time on serious speeches about the nature of art, the cruelties of art and the joys of art. The production hits the brakes during these moments, stopping the wonderful momentum of wackiness that enveloped the room.

That’s one of the things that artists have trouble understanding. An audience wants to see them create their art. We don’t necessarily want to hear them whine about how difficult it is.

It is toward the end of the play that the critic, played by Lukasavage, asks the operative question.

"A play about theater people on opening night," he says. "Who cares about them?"

Good question.

"It’s Only A Play" runs through May 8 and information on showtimes and tickets is available here.