MILL HALL — “Stones in His Pockets,” the production on stage at Millbrook Playhouse’s Poorman Cabaret through Sunday, gives us a village full of notable Irish characters, as well as a production crew of equally notable Hollywood types, who come together to make a movie in Ireland’s rural County Kerry. In the process, they try to figure out how an imaginative life is best lived.

The charm and delight of the play are due partly to its Irish flavor, but also to the fact that two actors, Ed Madson and Eric Jones, brilliantly perform the entire eccentric cast of 15 characters. Performing the roles of both men and women, they move from one to another at sometimes lightning speed, without missing a beat. It’s a tour de force of a performance!

The set, crafted beautifully by Carson Hambuechen, invites us immediately to a lush Irish countryside, interrupted only by a few scattered houses and the occasional wooden gate. But the play’s tensions become apparent as soon as we notice the director’s chair and the movie lights positioned at each side of the stage. And soon we learn that this serene setting has been commandeered by a Hollywood film crew interested in recruiting the “local color” as extras in a production whose main goal is finishing the movie on time, and on budget.

Charlie and Jake, the two local men who carry the thread of the story, are initially wonderstruck, eager to rub shoulders with glamorous Hollywood stars.

Charlie, who has written a movie script of his own, is especially excited, seeing a chance that his efforts might be read and eventually produced.

But their fantasies are quickly extinguished when news comes that Sean, a local boy of 17, has drowned himself by weighting his pockets down with stones and walking into the lake.

Sean, played poignantly by Eric Jones, is an imaginative kid who has been lured by social media into treacherous territory; his dreams of rock-stardom have narrowed his focus so thoroughly that he thinks only of replacing his now-hated homeland with a set of virtual fantasies. He attempts, in an act of final desperation, to realize these fantasies by awkwardly forcing his way onto the movie set and is abruptly — and shockingly — thrown out onto the street by one of the stars.

The Hollywood machine, instead of enhancing our dreams, has instead destroyed them.

The play goes on to ask some provocative questions. If Hollywood has filled our heads with dangerously misleading dreams, should these dreams be abandoned and, if not, how can our imaginative worlds be shaped to our benefit?

“Stones in His Pockets” gives a completely satisfying answer to that question, but I’ll let you see the play to find out what it is.

Acting in this play presents multiple challenges, but Madson and Jones meet these challenges admirably. They are required not only to enact character changes with split-second timing but also to move emotionally from deeply reflective moments to acts of intense aggression with just the simple turn of a baseball hat. The play also mixes the sadness over Sean’s death with some brilliant comic touches. Especially wonderful are the moments when Charlie and Jake follow director’s orders and — ala Monte Python — simulate reacting to events off screen that are not actually happening. It’s a true delight to watch Madson and Jones perform together with such exquisite balance and coordination.

Lawrence Lesher, director of the play, has taken this challenging material and made of it a wonderfully effective, beautifully flowing production. Lesher, who is probably best known at Millbrook for his directorship of “Misery” tells me he will be directing three different productions of “Misery” in different parts of the country over the next several months.

Also on this team are V.C. Deener (props designer), Kevin Harris (sound designer), Ericka Conklin (lighting designer), and Shantel Hill (production stage manager).

The production, which contains some strong language and sensitive topics, has a running time of one-and-a-half hours and includes a 15-minute intermission. The four remaining performances of the show will be at 7:30 p.m. tonight, Friday and Saturday; and 2 p.m. on Sunday.

For more information or tickets, visit millbrookplayhouse.org or call the box office at 570-748-8083.