BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Consider “The Explorer’s Club” as a daffy Victorian-style variation on “The Big Bang Theory” and you can better appreciate this entertaining comedy that opened on Thursday in a deft production by Manhattan Theatre Club.

Expect little significance in theme here but otherwise expect to laugh frequently at the obsessive doings of the eccentric people in Nell Benjamin’s two-act farce about an intrepid female explorer who invades the clubby domain of an all-male organization in 1879 London.

Phyllida Spotte-Hume (Jennifer Westfeldt) not only has just discovered a long-lost civilization but she brings back from it, Luigi (Carson Elrod), a blue-painted warrior of a ferociously adaptive nature.

Fretway (Lorenzo Pisoni), a mild-mannered botanist crushed on Pyllida, sponsors her entry into the club. Other members are not so enthused, especially Sloane (John McMartin), a crusty professor of “archeo-theology” who believes all women are jezebels -- and who is just about to reveal to the Irish nation that they are all descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel.

The dashing Percy (David Furr), the aristocratic discoverer of the East Pole, rather fancies Phyllida, but before anything comes of his rivalry with Fretway, double disaster strikes.

Luigi’s presentation to Queen Victoria goes terribly awry (offstage, alas) and her private secretary, Humphries (Max Baker), soon surrounds the club with British soldiers. Meanwhile, Professor Sloane’s great discovery enrages the local Irish citizenry, who also besiege the building.

Matters then get really screwy. Among the second act’s highlights is the arrival of Beebe (Arnie Burton), a fantastic survivor of one of Percy’s fatal expeditions who now seeks vengeance.

The playwright lightly renders all of this silly-ass nonsense with mock-Victorian dialogue, some amusing running gags and a bonus of physical comedy as Luigi learns to be a bartender and starts slinging drinks around the extremely handsome club room designed by Donyale Werle with burled woodwork and acres of taxidermy. The deluxe period costumes by Anita Yavich are another pleasure for the eye.

The characters, which also include the 1879 equivalents of Wolowitz and Rajesh in the whatever-ologists played by Brian Ayers and Steven Boyer, are depicted with expertise by the entire company under the confident direction of Marc Bruni, who stages the comedy at a gallop. The primly pretty Westfeldt is all dauntless charm as Phyllida and nicely squired by the gallant Pisoni and swaggering Furr. The extra-dry, wheedling presence of McMartin as the dotty professor is a treat while Burton is wonderfully loony as a schizophrenic survivor.

The fierce yet convivial Luigi – a blue boy for the ages in his wild tribal get-up – is minutely detailed with hilarious effect by Elrod, whose gung-ho performance is the memorable topper for this fruitcake farce.

“The Explorer’s Club” continues through July 21 at New York City Center Stage I, 131 W. 55th St., New York.  Call (212) 581-1212 or visit www.nycitycenter.org.