“naughty bits.”

Frisky business afoot in Buntport’s “Naughty Bits”

The Buntport Theater Company’s erudite cut-ups are at it again. And nearly at their best with their latest, collaboratively wrought play, “Naughty Bits,” running through Oct. 4.

comedy

Aided by an Art Historian, a RomanceNovelist and awellto-do couple straight out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, this nimble comedy ponders bodies and their parts, gender and class, and, most pointedly, the disappearance of a certain appendage fromthe LansdowneHerakles. That’s Hercules to you. For more than a century, the Roman homage to the Greek hero resided at the Lansdowne House in London. In 1951, J. Paul Getty bought the stone demigod— lion skin hanging by his side, club resting on his shoulder. It holds a prominent place at the Getty Villa in Malibu, Calif.

You’ll learn much of this as the play’s distinct characters begin to inch toward one another across eras.

The laughs can be brainy and broad, physically deft and metaphysically agile. Think Lucille Ball byway of Jacques Derrida — after a chocolate edible.

Wait, did the Romance Novelist just mention Marcel Duchamp? Of course she did.

ErinRollmanandBrianColonnaare terrific as JennyandHarry, the 1920s couple, more insouciant andfriskythanroaring.

As the Art Historian, Erik Edborg allows his hands to flit and his voice to flutter as he projects slides of the sculpture in question.

“He’s got magnetism, even formarble,” he says nervously.

Hannah Duggan’s turn as the Romance Novelist on a writing vacation— and often on the phone to her editor— hits heady and populist notes.

About the company’s fifth member: SamAnTha Schmistz. Much like the Herakles’ missing part— the cause of so much contemplation— her absence is potent.

Operating lights and sound, she cues actors and audience to shifts in time and mood. We have her to thank as the action nails an absurdly touching (and groping) vibe, reminiscent of Studio 54 during its heyday.