ROMANCE is at the center of the Irish Repertory Theatre's new production of Take Me Along, the 1959 musical based on Eugene O'Neill's Ah Wilderness. First comes the romance of youth, with its unruly passions, and then the tender and no less heartfelt affections of maturity.

Set in the fictional town of Centerville, Connecticut, where it's the Fourth of July and the flags are flying, Take Me Along is based on the stage play that gave to O'Neill something he had never known - a happy family.

Most famous for his searing theatrical portraits of his self-destructive clan, it's a relief that the wish fulfillment of Take Me Along is as compelling for the audience as it must have been for the notoriously saturnine O'Neill himself.

To bring their latest production to the stage, Irish Rep director Charlotte Moore assembled another likeable cast with distinctly accomplished Broadway singing backgrounds. Playing the friends and family in this fictional account of O'Neill's boyhood are William Parry (Sunday in the Park With George), Donna Bullock (Ragtime, A Class Act), Don Stephenson (Dracula, By Jeeves, The Producers) Anastasia Barzee (Jekyll and Hyde, White Christmas) and Gordon Stanley (Cabaret, Beauty and the Beast, Ragtime).

Clearly the folks at the Irish Rep are adept at catching lightning in a bottle, because this is the latest in an increasingly long line of artisitic and commercial hits for the company this season.

In the thoroughly Arcadian community of Centerville where Richard, the eldest son of the Miller family, has fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with his young paramour Muriel, the musical reminds us that the only thing to do with a strong passion is to yield to it.

As young Richard, the ethereally handsome Teddy Eck brings aching sincerity to a mawkish role, also finding the rich vein of humor lurking just beneath the layers of adolescent pomposity. "I would die!" he sings, listing the many ways he'd fall to pieces if his lover ever rejected him. His over-earnestness is hilarious and he's well cast as a developing young writer bewitched by his gorgeous neighbor.

Mirroring the travails of the teenagers, Uncle Sid, the ne'er do well who arrives "high as a kite," and his long suffering girlfriend Lily try to patch up the romance they abandoned a decade earlier. But how can Lily trust him when it's clear he's already tipsy?

In the original Broadway production legendary Irish American comic Jackie Gleason starred as Uncle Sid, and in the Irish Rep's new version the role is masterfully reprised by Broadway favorite Don Stephenson.

Partnering him, Beth Glover invests immense feeling into her standout delivery of "We're Home," a song that gently underlines the deep romantic yearning beneath her placid exterior.

Other standouts of the production include Justin Packard's performance of "Pleasant Beach House," an ode to the sinful attractions of a house of ill repute frequented by the great and good of the Centerville community in the wee small hours of the night. Barzee also does terrific work with her femme fatale role, raising the rafters with the band in the hymn to Jack Daniels that is "If Jesus Don't Love Ya."

In the modern era when, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, the travails of ordinary people don't seem to amount to a hill of beans, how welcome it is to see a musical that remembers what's best in human nature and the human heart.

The Millers are celebrating the Fourth of July in high style, and although young Richard knows there's more than a little humbug and hypocrisy lurking behind the lace curtains of his middle class hometown, there's still enough American fellow feeling to right the wrongs and call it a (happy) day.

O'Neill loved Connecticut, and his play and the music it inspired in Take Me Along bring to life the elusive dream family he wished for but never had. It's a beguiling theatrical vision and a perfect antidote to our own troubled times. Flawlessly directed by Moore, it's the sort of production that sends you home signing.

Take Me Along is now playing at the Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 West 22nd Street in New York. Engagement runs until April 15. For tickets call 212-727-2737, or visit www.irishrep.org.