Within the first five minutes of ACT Theatre’s latest play, The Female of the Species, Margot Mason (Suzy Hunt) has deftly removed her bra and tossed it to the ground, where it lies just beneath the floral…err, vitality of a Georgia O’Keefe print hanging on the wall. Tribal statuettes adorn the mantelpiece of Mason’s study; a MacBook sits idly on her desk. If there was ever a caricature of a feminist writer in her element, this is it.

But rather than descend into clichés, Joanna Murray-Smith’s send-up of feminism—based on the true story of 1970s feminist icon Germaine Greer—is a whip-smart satire that manages to poke fun at dogma on both sides of the gender divide. Equality of the sexes, you could say. No one is spared: the aging, arrogant writer/professor who seems to have peaked with tomes The Cerebral Vagina and Madame Ovary. The seriously disgruntled former student, Molly (Renata Friedman), who holds Mason at gunpoint in her own home (remember, true story!), but is actually a softie who wants a caring man and lots of babies. There’s Mason’s daughter, Tess (the hilarious Morgan Rowe), an overworked, undersexed housewife, and her metrosexual husband Bryan (Paul Morgan Stetler). There’s a brutish cab driver who’s a caveman-philosopher, a stylish gay publisher—they all have a role in this farce.

Director Allison Narver sends characters in and out of the hostage scene at a healthy clip, keeping the insanity moving briskly as the gun is bobbled and gender politics debated. Though plot choices often come second to witty banter—with characters appearing for contrived reasons—the acting is so strong, the jokes so well wrought, that you just kind of shrug and let it unfold. To steal a quote from the play: “Feminism needs theatricality; otherwise it’s pompous wind.” It’s certainly ripe material for a good comedy.

The Female of the Species runs at ACT Theatre through July 18.