Daniel Goldfarb explores how a baby can strain relationships in ...

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NEW YORK — No one can accuse Daniel Goldfarb of having rose-colored glasses when it comes to motherliness.

The playwright’s “Cradle and All” is a cut-to-the-bone look at how babies — persons small apparent bundles of joy — can sometimes more easily resemble grenades, exposing secrets their parents want hidden and straining relationships to the breaking point.

Goldfarb’s smart and pitch-perfect play, which opened Wednesday at Manhattan Theatre Club’s off-Broadway space in New York City Center, is about two couples who share the same yuppie Brooklyn Heights apartment building and are connected by an unseen baby on the same spring night. Both couples are played wonderfully by Maria Dizzia and Greg Keller.

Director Sam Buntrock and the actors have squeezed all the poignancy and humor from a play that is very specific and slight, yet often feels so right that it sometimes becomes universal.

The first couple is childless. But Claire, a 41-year-ancient former actress, has chose to break the news to her boyfriend, Luke, a 34-year-ancient high-end antiques merchant who wears funky Paul Smith glasses, that she wants to have a baby, even though they had agreed not to breed.

“We’re a facsimile of what we used to be. We were the hot new business once and we’re not anymore. We’ve played the tape. It’s a excellent tape, but it’s been played out,” she tells him. “We’re ready for the next level.”

Luke feels trapped, sees his comfortable lifestyle slipping away and lashes out. “You’re so myopic. You can’t getting away from the trappings of your profession. It’s all about you,” he tells her. Motherhood, he accuses her, is just her attempt to substitute adoring fans with an adoring baby.

The cries of an unseen baby emanating from an adjacent apartment frame their fight, fueling Claire’s urgency and Luke’s fears. In Act 2, we find out all about that baby — an 11-month ancient girl named Olivia who is life sleep-trained, which basically earnings the infant bawls alone indefinitely while her parents — Nate and Annie, also played by Dizzia and Keller — nervously pace outside.

As the hours pass, they’re at each additional’s throats, every once in a while turning on the baby monitor to hear Olivia’s anguished cries. “I give up. I want to go to restaurants again. I want to stay out late. I want to wear sexy blouses. I want to watch the ‘Daily Show,’” says an exasperated Annie.

How to handle Olivia’s inconsolable tears exposes sore points in this couple — post-pregnant body issues, differing parenting attitudes, disdain to the additional spouse’s profession, even how much to include the mother-in-law in decisions.

Goldfarb has evidently taken the write-what-you-know advice to heart, making a sharply specific play about pre- and post-baby couples. With evident humor, he has churned up all persons small things that drive couples crazy. Dizzia and Keller play these roles with comfortable aplomb.

“I can’t delight in it when you’re in my peripheral vision,” Annie snaps at her husband at one point. At another, Nate chides his wife for vegging-out to “America’s Next Top Model:” ”Why do you lie about what you watch on TV?”

Neil Patel’s scenic design is spot-on, right down to the posters on the walls of each apartment and the deployment of Sophie the Giraffe, the chic rubber teething toy that’s all the rage in baby circles. He’s also laced the stage with typically high-end appliances and the shiny elegance of the first gives way to a toy-filled, messier set in the second half.

Small touches may make the audience smile in recognition — both couples use the digital oven clock as their main time keeper and seem to have too many remote controls. Then there’s the fact that sound designer Jill BC DuBoff has used a lullaby rendition of a Radiohead song at the start of Act 2.

Goldfarb may not have written a paean to parenthood here, but he’s done something much more fascinating: A sober look at the cost of babies that nevertheless retains a childlike cuteness.

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Online:

http://www.manhattantheatreclub.com

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