A couple of weeks ago, I didn’t review — because the play had too short a run for our press schedule — the Bloomsburg University production on the BTE stage of Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata.” It was wonderfully done, very funny and so true to the original (although set in 2011) that it was close to raunchy. I loved it, and I was glad I didn’t need to review it.

In a way, “Incorruptible” is almost harder to review. It’s also wonderfully done and very funny, but instead of raunchy, it’s irreverent — though ultimately, it speaks for faith.

This play is a farce, a bedroom farce without the bedroom. Instead, it’s a monastery farce. A medieval monastery in financial trouble turns to creating “relics.” Their mission is to feed the hungry, aid the poor — but the saint whose relics their monastery has, has not produced a miracle in a dozen years. The monks’ motives are good — attract pilgrims to make money to help the poor.

But the methods, creating “relics,” are not. (A program note: “This sort of thing really happened.” Who knew?)

The monastery is waiting for a visit from the pope, who is coming to see their “incorruptible” — the body of a saint that miraculously does not decompose after death, and is believed capable of curing the incurable and restoring the faith of lost souls. A papal visit would be sure to bring lots of pilgrims, with cash to help the poor.

Word comes that the pope has gone to Bernay instead to see St. Foy, that there have been miracles there, and that the incorruptible St. Foy at Bernay (actually a recently dug-up pig farmer) was brought there by a one-eyed monk and sold for 30 gold pieces. The one-eyed minstrel is sent for, and blackmailed into serving the monastery and its newly valuable graveyard.

Strong characters carry the action: Laurie McCants is a poor and wily peasant woman wanting the saint to intercede to save her sick cow. She also markets her daughter, Marie, ”who’s been known to ease the burden of the celibate.” Marie (Cassandra Piziescko), a “wife of sorts” to Jack, the one-eyed minstrel, sings and dances (very nicely) and minstrel’s assistant (think Vanna White in “Wheel of Fortune”).

In an energetic role, Andrew Hubatsek sings and dances as the minstrel, and masterminds the body-parts operation for the monks. James Goode is Charles, the mostly upright but conflicted abbot of the monastery; Daniel Roth is Brother Martin, a money-grubbing, cynical second-in-command. Elizabeth Dowd plays the stern Agatha, abbess of Bernay, Charles the abbot’s sister and rival, with a confrontational gusto. The prow of her, her walk (more like a stomp) and her intimidating voice create the character. The sweet and simple-minded Brother Olf, a novice, is played with perfect timing by Gerard Stropnicky.

Brother Felix as an engaging and pious novice is well played with sincerity and humor by guest actor Christopher Kaminstein (who will teach theater this summer at the Governor’s School for the Arts in Erie).

Signs of their poverty are everywhere in set designer’s Adrian W. Jones’s somber set: a post supports what’s left of the roof, and an arch is held up with scaffolding. “We took a vow of poverty to help the helpless, not to become them,” says Brother Martin.

Director Martin Shell, a former BTE member and frequent guest artist, has made a tight and funny play on an edgy topic, with artful double-takes and silences. Between the Thursday premiere and the Sunday matinee, a few changes made motivations and miracles clearer.

The plot has plenty of room for farce: mistaken identity and the sort of in-and-out-of-sight gag common to slapstick and farce — in this case, it’s around and behind the altar. By the time the real St. Foy’s bones are restored to the altar, these hopelessly corrupted monks prove to be incorruptible after all. Can lost faith be restored? Can miracles happen again? The play’s fast-paced ending provided a real eye-opener.

n Louise Sweeney lives in Jerseytown.