NEW YORK (AP) ¿ For a story that is essentially one of stunted hope and scrabbling desperation, "Pumpgirl" has a lot of humour in it.

Currently on view at Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage II, the work is told as a series of separate monologues by three characters ¿ Pumpgirl, Hammy and Sinead. They perform on David Korins' spare set aided by only three chairs spaced out evenly on top of a large plastic terrarium that serves as the stage. The honeysuckle and shrubs in the dirt beneath look as forlorn and constrained as the characters' lives.

There is no direct interaction among the three, but their lives do intertwine in various dramatic ways. You can see some of the drama coming a mile away, unfortunately, especially in the first act. The language of Irish playwright Abbie Spallen is richly detailed and chock full of inventive imagery ¿ her descriptions are lively, it's just the plot itself that seems tired.

It's a credit to both director Carolyn Cantor and dialect coach Deborah Hecht that the stories are told as fluidly as they are; only one actor is Irish and there's a great deal of slang that might get lost on an American audience were the direction accents, and acting not so meticulous.

Hannah Cabell, as the titular pumpgirl, is a tough-talking tomboy working at a bleak gas station in an even bleaker small town in Northern Ireland. She loves the "sweet and sour" smell of gasoline: "Like if you got a bag of cherries and mashed them all up and then were to take the whole load and slam it into a bucket of vinegar."

She also loves Hammy (No Helmet) McAlinden, a married stock-car racer who works in a chicken hatchery. Their affair is as passionless as it gets, yet Cabell's face when she speaks of Hammy seems lit from within. Her portrayal is naive, hopeful and ultimately forgiving, and she brings a buoyant charm and sweet sense of humor to the role.

A wicked wit also infuses Geraldine Hughes' portrayal of Sinead, Hammy's long-suffering wife. The only Irish actor in the cast, her Sinead is bitter and downtrodden from her husband's constant carousing and lack of attention but sparks of repressed intelligence shine through in caustic observations on married life. Unfortunately, it's her respect for learning that leads to an affair of her own, with poetry-quoting ex-con Shawshank, one of Hammy's best friends. Hughes masterfully shows us Sinead's sarcastic shell and touchingly illustrates her romantic vulnerabilities as well. As Hammy, Paul Sparks is all braggadocio and bluster in Act 1, then, after his involvement in a horrible betrayal of the pumpgirl, he becomes childlike and unsure. Cars are his passion and he wishes he could always be winning races: "the pain, the ecstasy, and me."

All the performers are fine storytellers and it is their considerable talents that transform "Pumpgirl" from mere melodrama into an emotionally truthful tale.