It’s like Masterpiece Theatre on drugs.

So says Kansas University theater and film professor John Staniunas of George Bernard Shaw’s “You Never Can Tell.” Not that Shaw’s 1897 play set in an English resort town includes any pill-popping or hallucinogenic episodes.

“They’re just wacky, wonderful characters,” Staniunas said. “It’s definitely not stuffy, stuffy English theater.”

The University Theatre’s production of the play opens Friday at Crafton-Preyer Theatre. Staniunas is directing.

“You Never Can Tell” is a domestic comedy that tells the story of a celebrated sociologist who brings her three progressively reared children from a lengthy stay in Madeira to an English resort town. Coincidentally, the rigidly traditional father they left 18 years earlier lives in the town, as does a poor “five-shilling” dentist who instantly falls in love with the older daughter. Whimsical moments ensue as the children confront a number of humorous social conventions of Victorian England.

Though the piece is set in a specific time period, Staniunas said, it examines themes that still resonate today: the dual of the sexes, the feminist movement, child-parent relationships and the debate over science versus romance or love.

“(Shaw) would not have liked it if he thought his plays got dusty at all. You always have to look at Shaw’s work in relationship to the present, to what is alive still today in those plays,” he said. “I think he wrote so relevantly about his own time that they really do stand the test of time.”

“You Never Can Tell” is one of Shaw’s “plays pleasant,” so-called by scholars who have tried to categorize the Nobel Prize-winning playwright’s work. The classification speaks for itself.

“They all have optimistic content. They all end pleasantly. They all end happily and in marriages,” Staniunas said. “They’re whimsical. And what it means is that it’s a pleasant evening at the theater. You’re not going to go see a Greek tragedy.”

Staniunas exudes enthusiasm when he speaks of Shaw, whose work he describes as dynamic, rich, playful and full of movement.

“There’s something about the characters that just makes you smile. At the same time, the language is just incredibly rich,” he said. “Shaw was a music critic for years, and so he writes these incredible word arias for the characters.”

The cast seems to share the director’s energy. They’re taking to the play “like pigs in a mud hole,” Staniunas said. “They’re loving Shaw.”

KANSAS UNIVERSITY'S Dylan Hilpman, Lawrence freshman, and Kelly Mengelkoch, Wichita senior, run through a dress rehearsal for University Theatre's production of You

Though “You Never Can Tell” is a “straight” play, the production contains some music and choreography, which the cast will perform in “stunning” period costume.

In preparation for staging the play, Staniunas attended the Shaw Festival during KU’s Fall Break in October. He and cast members also have drawn knowledge from the “wise sage” of the KU production: Dean Bevan, emeritus professor of English at Baker University, KU alumnus and Shaw scholar. Bevan is serving as Dramaturg and playing the Waiter, a central character who weaves in and out of the play’s action.

Bevan’s dissertation, a 10-volume “Concordance to the Plays and Prefaces of Bernard Shaw,” was published in 1972 and still is used in libraries and classrooms today. The retired professor said his work on the KU production had been energizing.

“Altogether, ‘You Never Can Tell’ energetically showcases the iconoclasm that made Bernard Shaw world-famous,” he said. “It is a joy to see it come alive on stage.”