YOUNGSTOWN — My favorite movie of 2022 was “The Banshees of Inisherin.”

As much as I liked it, more than once while watching it, I thought, “Why didn’t I turn on the subtitles?”

I had the same reaction watching Youngstown State University Theatre’s production of “Playboy of the Western World.” I wished it had been treated like a foreign language opera and had subtitles projected above the performers.

The first warning is in the program, which like a copy of “A Clockwork Orange,” has a glossary of the colloquialisms (in this case Irish slang) that fill John Millington Synge’s nearly 120-year-old play. It will pay off to spend a few minutes looking at the list before the show starts instead of phone scrolling.

If doing homework before a play doesn’t sound appealing, consider yourself warned. YSU’s production is very well done, from the performances of the student cast to its pub set and exquisite costumes, but it’s not an easy watch. Unfamiliar language delivered in thick Irish accents doesn’t lend itself to easy comprehension.

It’s a polished piece of theater. It’s the kind of work a collegiate theater program should expose to its students. But it’s not, “Hey, honey, wanna go see an Irish comedy for Valentine’s Day?”

Director Todd Dicken seems to realize this, and the show is filled with broad, physical comedy that punctuate comedic moments that might not land relying on the wordplay alone.

The action takes place in a pub in a tiny Irish town at the beginning of the 20th century where a stranger arrives, recounting the story of how he murdered his father with a farming tool and is on the run. In a town where folks are used to seeing the same people and doing the same things day in, day out, stranger Christy Mahon (Noah Dudai) is exotic and charming. He immediately captures the attention of the barkeep’s daughter, Margaret Flaherty (Samantha Cox), much to the dismay of her boyfriend, Shawn (Landon Eli).

Margaret isn’t the only one who’s smitten. The other young women swoon at his every word and gesture like girls watching the Fab Four at the height of Beatlemania.

In the preview story for “Playboy,” Dicken talked about working with actors playing the supporting roles — “Even if they’re not speaking, things that they’re doing on stage in the background become so much part of the story itself,” he said.

Lauren Ladd, Emmalee Chappa, Crystal Fisher and Natalie Ciccone as the village girls and Ilse Zijlstra as Widow Quin are perfect examples of that. They’re a delight whenever they’re on stage and still getting laughs off stage as they peer through the windows of the pub.

The loose-limbed physicality of Eli, who flops around like a rag doll, and the interactions between Margaret’s father (Cyrus Dzikowski) and his patrons / drinking buddies (Nicholas Figiel and Anthony Mudryk) also add to the humor.

Cox is best at always conveying the intent of her words, even if the words themselves are unfamiliar, and she can wield a bar rag like a lethal weapon.

Dicken’s set design works well in Bliss Hall’s Spotlight Theater, taking up two sides of the adaptable performance space and creating an L-shaped seating area for the audience. The blocking and the actors mitigate a setup that could have created some awkward sightlines for the viewer.

Katherine Garlick’s costumes feel authentic and add a splash of color to counter the shades of brown that dominate the set, and her makeup equally is effective, especially when the audience discovers that Christy’s father (Merrill Voytko) is less dead than initially described.

I’m not sure how well this “boy” is going to play with casual theatergoers, but YSU Theatre’s production provides a rare opportunity to see a piece that’s unlikely to be done anywhere else locally outside of an educational institution.