Recently, I asked a friend who works as literary manager for a respected regional theater about the general level of new scripts that come her way. “I get a lot of excellent television scripts,” she replied, “but very few that really show a sense of how to write for the theater.” I was thinking of that observation during Paul Grellong’s new show, “Manuscript,” a tough-minded, diamond hard play about a couple of tough-minded, diamond-hard Ivy League students with serious literary ambitions. “Manuscript” plays a little like an above-average television series – say “Six Feet Under” or “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Like the best television writers, Mr. Grellong has a sharp, facile way with dialogue, and his play has an unflagging pace. If it seems a bit too wrapped up in its own cleverness and never strives for true depth, it is still a slightly unnerving comedy that does a very good job of avoiding the obvious.

“Manuscript” is set in a middleclass townhouse in Brooklyn Heights, where David (Pablo Schreiber), a Harvard freshman and aspiring writer, is home for Christmas break. Also on the scene is his closest friend, Chris (Jeffrey Carlson), a privileged WASP just a few months older than David. “Manuscript” is directed by Bob Balaban with a keen eye for detail and a sure sense of pacing and suspense. Wisely, the creative team has chosen to perform the play without intermission, because the material is not weighty enough to justify even a 10-minute break.

As the play opens, David is fraught with nerves, ostensibly because he is about to meet Chris’s girlfriend, Elizabeth (Marin Ireland), a Yale freshman. The younger sister of a celebrated author, Elizabeth already has secured a considerable literary name for herself as the author of a widely read New York Times Magazine article about her experience in a private high school, which in turn has led to a highly praised first novel.

You won’t have to squint too hard to see the shadow of Joyce Maynard, author of the high-profile Times Magazine article “An 18-Year-Old Looks Back On Life,” especially since Mr. Grellong takes pains to drop Ms. Maynard’s name later in his script. The highly publicized David Leavitt-Stephen Spender battle comes to mind, as does the aforementioned Joyce Maynard’s expose of her relationship with the famously reclusive J.D. Salinger.

As it happens, David and Elizabeth have already met. In fact, they were once romantically involved, and Elizabeth’s career-making essay is based on a piece that David wrote about being a Jew in a WASP prep school, which Elizabeth appropriated, rewrote, and published herself. Elizabeth, already a seasoned operator, has no qualms about taking David’s essay; she considers it an act of “facilitating” rather than stealing. She is a glib literary brat who can’t believe that anyone would write without using spell-checker, and smugly lords it over David with lines such as “I’ve been in the publishing business for a year.”

And then there is an even more unexpected turn. While the tensions between Chris, Elizabeth, and David build, the manuscript of a celebrated author, an idol of David’s, falls into their hands. The author, it seems, has just died, and the manuscript of his latest (incomplete) novel seems to be the only copy in existence. Elizabeth leaps at the chance to commit literary fraud once again and suggests that the three of them keep the manuscript, which she will rewrite – with a vague promise that, if her secret is kept, she will work to further David’s writing career. There is a discussion of the ethical considerations of such a move. “It’s your career, David,” Elizabeth argues. “Get it while you’re young.” Then, to Chris’s shock, David appears to go along with the scam.

Of the three actors, Marin Ireland finished ahead of her two co-stars. Ms. Ireland displayed an infallible sense of performance rhythm and made Elizabeth’s blinders-on drive to succeed both chilling and comic. As David, Pablo Schreiber had a slow start, with a studied approach to his lines, but he came alive in his scenes with Ms. Ireland, creating a memorable study in raw ambition and deeply rooted anger. As Chris, Jeffrey Carlson’s concentration seemed to fade in and out. David Swayze’s set for David’s bedroom had a believably lived-in look and ideally captured the private world of a gifted child not yet grown up.

“Manuscript” unfolds as a cat-and-mouse game with a rather earnest message that keeps popping through. It is very much a play of our time, when the promise of money seems to ride roughshod over traditional notions of the right thing to do.

Until August 21 (101 E. 15 Street, at Union Square East, 212-375-1110).