Off-Broadway is enjoying a bit of a renaissance of the work of playwright Sam Shepard this winter. While actor-turned-director Ethan Hawke is currently previewing The New Group’s revival of Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, Atlantic Theater Company is first out of the gate with the American premiere of Ages of the Moon, a taut 80-minute dark comedy starring esteemed Irish actors Seán McGinley and Stephen Rea (Academy Award nominee for The Crying Game).

Originally commissioned and produced by The Abbey Theatre in Dublin, where it played two sold-out engagements in 2009, Ages of the Moon concerns a bourbon-soaked tête-à-tête between a couple of estranged friends who admit that they’re “not exactly spring colts anymore.” Ames (Rea) is desperate for some kind of human connection, and calls his old buddy Byron (McGinley) who hops on a bus immediately, worried for his old friend’s health. Beneath a finicky ceiling fan on a front porch in the middle of Nowheresville America, two old coots haltingly hash out the past fifty years while waiting for the evening’s lunar eclipse.

Between seemingly inconsequential observances about the virtues of women riding bicycles and stories about improbably expensive drinks at the Kentucky Derby and spilling a pot of hot coffee on singer/songwriter Roger Miller’s lap, deep-seeded rivalries and jealousies bubble to the surface, explode, recede, and erupt again in a cyclical fashion.

Interestingly, despite the characters’ terrible loneliness, Ames and Byron seem terrified of connecting – the two actors rarely look at each other. McGinley’s Byron is the cooler one, igniting his friend’s fury with subtle, knowing digs, while Stephen Rea is all jangled nerves and haunted eyes as the hothead Ames. Shepard being Shepard, things must come to a violent head and in director Jimmy Fay’s sharp production, the primary victim’s downfall involves a shotgun and some exceptionally well-executed stagecraft.

Atlantic Theater Company imported the whole production from The Abbey Theatre, and one of the more remarkable aspects is how snug the whole thing fits on the stage of the Linda Gross Theatre, almost as if scenic designer Brien Vahey’s broad front porch is an extension of the Linda Gross Theater’s existing architecture with its stark brick edifice.

Shepard burst onto the theatrical scene in the 1960s and slowly gained a foothold as the angry, corrosively funny voice of his generation, winning a 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Buried Child along the way, in addition to other successes including A Lie of the Mind, Fool for Love, and True West. As he edges his way past middle-age, it’s a joy to see that this 67-year-old has lost none of his power and punch, and is secure in his place as one of America’s preeminent playwrights.

Ages of the Moon plays Tuesday through Friday at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm and 7pm. Atlantic Theater Company at the Linda Gross Theater is located at 336 West 20th Street (between 8th and 9th Avenues). Tickets for mainstage productions are $65 and are available by calling TicketCentral.com at 212-279-4200. Ages of the Moon is participating in NYC & Co’s On The House promotion. For more information, click HERE.