Over the weekend, a production of A.R. Gurney’s “Sylvia” by Winterport Open Stage raised a juicy question. Can a small-town community theater reasonably expect to succeed in presenting a tale about Manhattanites?

The answer is, of course, yes. Talent and insight aren’t the private domain of Broadway. In the WOS production, which opened and closed on the same weekend, director Reed Farrar persuaded a cast of actors to show a fine sense of drama and humor. In particular, Kent McKusick and Kim Pitula, who respectively played a businessman engulfed in 20th century disillusionment and the stray dog he brings home to live in his Upper East Side apartment with his wife, were continuously expressive and amusing.

With the exception of the delectably campy Peter Clain, who was dashy as a therapist of indeterminate gender, the rest of the cast — Sheridan Rawcliffe, Greg Lincoln and Suzanne Hall — delivered just what you’d expect from a community team. They had that type of enthusiastic abandon, sparkle and spunk that got people laughing deep in their bellies. Indeed, I can’t remember the last time an audience guffawed so much and for so long. Hands down, this was a hilarious, and at times charming, evening of theater.

There’s another answer to this review’s earlier question, however. In a less philosophical way, a small-town community theater goes barking up a big tree with a play such as “Sylvia,” which is deeply New Yorkerish. There’s a certain slickness that has to underscore this play, and trying to create that with a shadowed skyline, a couch and a chair at the auditorium of Wagner Middle School, where 12-year-olds eat lunch on weekdays, is a colossal challenge. When a spotlight goes berserk, or stage pieces quiver, or a cordless phone actually rings with a bell like the old dial phones, a little something gets lost in the translation. Tension between style and content arises.

But here’s another tangy question worth consideration. Should a small-town community theater take on plays such as “Sylvia”? Or for that matter, anything by Shakespeare or Beckett or even Mamet?

This answer is easy. If you’ve seen productions by WOS, then you know the answer is yes. This troupe is in the local good company of the University of Maine acting department and the Belfast Maskers for taking risks, and, largely, succeeding. Not only do they bring us works we might not otherwise see here in central Maine, but they force us to overlook occasional technical enigmas and theatrical vicissitudes, and to pay attention to the skillful capability of language and of the people on stage.