SpeakEasy Stage, Boston MA. **** out of 5. For his swan song after 33 years at SpeakEasy Stage, founder Paul Daigneault has chosen a honey of a musical, one that encapsulates the tradition of humanism and professionalism for which the company has long been known. Indeed, there may be no more characteristic SpeakEasy property than A Man of No Importance, which combines the saga of a “little man”’s struggles with art, love, and sexuality with the portrayal of the vibrant community – now expansive and welcoming, now drunken and cruel – in which our hero finds himself. Tram conductor Alfie Byrne must conceal his same-sex inclinations in aggressively Catholic Dublin circa 1964, so he pours all that pent-up emotion into the local little theater and the works of his countryman Oscar Wilde, an artistic genius whose lust for life (and lust) Alfie wishes he could emulate. A proposed production of Salome brings everything – religious bigotry included – out into the open. The fine Albert Finney-toplined 1995 film, which I’ll credit to writer Barry Devlin since neither script nor program does so, is fleshed out by Terrence McNally’s witty book and a soaring score by Ahrens and Flaherty, all of whom were eager to follow their majestic Ragtime with something equally sensitive but more intimate. They succeeded. Daigneault, who first staged the piece in 2003, invests it with greater theatricality by following NYC director John Doyle’s lead in having a company of 15 supplement a small combo with orchestration ranging from clarinet and pennywhistle, to mandolin and percussion. We are family, the show defiantly tells the forces of brutality, musically as well as emotionally. Local treasure Eddie Shields is superbly focused in the lead role, and the entire cast proves daaaaarlin’ without overdoing the Irish shtick. (They speak easy with the brogue, I mean.) The staging is a bit cluttered at times, but then so is life, and Karen Perlow’s lighting facilitates our focus throughout. What a lovely evening. (Photo of Eddie Shields, c. and his passengers by Nile Scott Studios.)