Still contentious, after all these years

Foremost among these themes is friction between the sexes - specifically, what Lipsky, in his program notes, pegs as “a certain kind of passionate, volatile relationship . . . endemic to those of us who came of age in the ’60s.’’ Not coincidentally, the second wave of feminism came of age then, too. It’s a bit disconcerting, four decades later, to see women repeatedly depicted as anchors and men as adventurers at odds with the demands of domesticity. More than half of the plays deal with absentee fathers and the embittered women they left behind.

Each segment is preceded by lava-lamp-like projections and a short soundtrack mixing contemporary songs and bits of broadcast news. There’s an implicit invitation - for older audiences at least - to play “Where were you when . . . ?’’

The first quartet of plays represents youth, with Heather Girardi and Christian Pederson - extraordinary chameleons, both - pitted against each other in a series of fraught situations. In “Flying Above the Clouds,’’ set in 1964, two jet-setters, jammed in an Air India bathroom, flirt as they hammer out who’ll be responsible for smuggling what illicit substance (or species). “Wake Up Call’’ (1968) skips to Saigon, pre-Tet Offensive, and they’re war correspondents, trying to hang tough but getting emotionally attached. “Girl in the Basement’’ (1973) concerns two romantically entangled but mutually competitive musicians trying to score a recording contract. Girardi proves a crack Grace Slick imitator, Pedersen a really good blues guitarist (he wrote the music for the title song), and their clashing egos yield easy laughs.

However, the final play in this section - “The Mistake’’ (1979), about a former debutante and her social-climbing ex-suitor meeting up at the Saratoga races - is problematic. Lipsky takes way too long to tease out the couple’s back story, and once exposed, it’s overly lurid. Nor is credibility helped by the otherwise astute costume designer Chelsea McCarthy’s decision to dress Girardi like Vicky Lawrence in “Mama’s Family.’’ Lace gloves, a flouncy hat, and a ratty fur boa - really?