‘Once’ tells simple, heartfelt tale of life, love

The performers in the musical "Once" sing and serve as members of the band. The show is at The Smith Center through Sunday. (Joan Marcus/Courtesy)

Stuart Ward, left, and Dani de Waal discover each other in the musical "Once," which plays at The Smith Center through Sunday. (Joan Marcus/Courtesy)

Stuart Ward, left, and Dani de Waal discover each other in the musical "Once," which plays at The Smith Center through Sunday. (Joan Marcus/Courtesy)

The performers in the musical "Once" sing and serve as members of the band. The show is at The Smith Center through Sunday. (Joan Marcus/Courtesy)

The performers in the musical "Once" sing and serve as members of the band. The show is at The Smith Center through Sunday. (Joan Marcus/Courtesy)

The performers in the musical "Once" sing and serve as members of the band. The show is at The Smith Center through Sunday. (Joan Marcus/Courtesy)

The performers in the musical "Once" sing and serve as members of the band. The show is at The Smith Center through Sunday. (Joan Marcus/Courtesy)

Stuart Ward, left, and Dani de Waal discover each other in the musical "Once," which plays at The Smith Center through Sunday. (Joan Marcus/Courtesy)

Musicals, as a rule, seldom explore the principle of “less is more.”

Once in a while, however, a “Once” comes along.

At The Smith Center through Sunday, the Tony-winning show — which captured eight awards in 2012, including best musical — ranks a rare screen-to-stage translation that not only reflects its source but generates its own glow.

Its source is the 2006 Irish indie that captured an Oscar for Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova’s haunting song “Falling Slowly,” which echoes the rueful heartache of its central couple (played by Hansard and Irglova themselves).

In the transition from screen to stage, however, their story becomes everybody’s story.

Everybody who’s ever loved and lost, that is, and has been tempted to stay that way — until somebody comes along and helps them find themselves again.

And if more than one somebody loses his or her heart in the process — well, that’s what happens when you start living a life you’re trying desperately to put on hold.

Such is the situation when “Once” opens, in a boisterous Dublin pub, where Guy (an achingly anguished Stuart Ward) is singing one last song at an open-mic night, a furious farewell to the sweetheart who’s decamped to New York.

“You won’t disappoint me,” he laments. “I can do that myself.”

But there’s somebody who won’t let him, a character known only as Girl (the endearingly quirky Dani de Waal).

A deceptively upbeat Czech immigrant, she’s not only transfixed by this Guy’s music but determined to keep him singing. And, somehow, to help him share his music with the world — all of which conveniently keeps her from having to deal with her own unfinished emotional business.

It’s a simple, delicate tale that travels a path strewn with roadblocks.

Yet “Once” largely avoids the quicksand of strained sentimentality. It has other, more complicated things in mind — and heart.

Adapting the movie (written and directed by John Carney), director John Tiffany (who collected one of “Once’s” eight Tonys) and playwright Enda Walsh (who collected another, for “Once’s” book) confine the action to the cozy, lovingly detailed pub, designed by Bob Crowley, who — you guessed it — won a Tony for his work. (Audience members can check it out during “Once’s” pre-show and intermission.)

Aided by glowing, transformative lighting (by Natasha Katz, another of the show’s Tony-winners), along with the audience’s collective imagination, the setting morphs from pub to cramped apartment to bank — and even to a romantic overlook where Guy and Girl gaze on the twinkling lights of Dublin, far away, and imagine what life would be like, if only they were the only guy and girl in the world.

Alas, they’re not, which means they, and their fellow cast members, must explore the mysteries, miseries — and all too fleeting delights — of life. What else can they do?

Detailing these dilemmas, “Once’s” musical numbers sneak up on you.

In part, that’s because this musical takes place in a world where music serves as a language of its own, able to convey feelings — and forge connections — that couldn’t be made any other way.

It’s also because “Once’s” cast members also serve as the show’s band members, performing the heartfelt Hansard-Irglova score (mostly on guitar, but also on piano, fiddle, mandolin, cello, drums, even ukulele) with enough palpable emotion to sell lyrics that occasionally sound as though they belong on some get-out-your-handkerchief-’cause-you’re-gonna-cry greeting card line.

Steven Hoggett’s stylized movements, meanwhile, don’t quite qualify as formal choreography. Yet the effective, affecting movements echo the heartbeat of the story — and the undercurrent of yearning the characters can’t always convey in song.

Ultimately, it’s that ability to express the inexpressible that gives “Once” such quietly eloquent power. In an era of too many in-your-face, over-the-top musicals, this one knows it can touch your heart — without ripping it out of your chest.