You don’t get many chances to see 18th century comedy by Italian dramatist Carlo Goldoni. Probably best known in this country for The Servant of Two Masters, Goldoni was a prolific playwright with some 120 comedies to his credit.

Chronos Theatre Group and Talent To A Muse join forces for this production of Goldoni’s The Coffee Shop, playing Friday and Saturday at Swedenborg Hall in Hillcrest.

Goldoni is known as the man who moved Italian theater away from the stock characters of commedia dell’arte and toward more realistic and believable situations and characters.

The Coffee Shop, set in Venice during Carnevale, uses both commedia dell’arte conventions and characters with more depth. The plot revolves around Eugenio (Tony Beville), whose fondness for gambling gets him into trouble, and the people around him who either try to help or to make his situation more difficult.

Ridolfo (Timothy Paul Evans), proprietor of the titular coffee shop, acts as a sort of father figure to Eugenio, trying time and again to bail him out of his problems. Pandolfo (Eric George), who runs a gambling den, has other motives; Don Marzio (George Weinberg-Harter), described by Ridolfo as “the trumpet of the community,” is the busybody who cannot keep anything to himself.

The Coffee Shop includes several familiar conventions of the time, including disguised wives who come to look for or spy on their husbands, a dancer who may or may not deserve the reputation Don Marzio tries to give her, and put-upon employees such as Ridolfo’s waiters Trappola (Harrison Myers) and Giovanni (Miranda Halverson).

The Coffee Shop is a slight comedy, played fast in one 90-minute shot. It will make you smile if not think, laugh if not ponder. My favorite actors are: Myers (who gets waiter Trappola just right), Innocenti, who plays Eugenio’s long-suffering wife for all it’s worth, and Weinberg-Harter, who has a grand time with the insufferable Don Marzio. And so do we.

Hurry, only two performances remain.

The Coffee Shop plays through Saturday, March 21, at Swedenborg Hall in Hillcrest. Shows Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. For tickets, call 619-615-8928. For more information, visit www.chronostheatre.com.