“Excuse me,” the guy on my right said. “It’s not rude for me to suck a lollipop during the show, is it?”

On a cozy patio at the Flea Theater, on a carpet of fake grass under an early evening sky, Mac Wellman’s short play “Bad Penny” was about to begin. With lights strung overhead, the atmosphere was almost picnic-festive.

A lollipop? Perfectly in order. And, as I suspected, the person who inquired turned out to be an actor — part of a cast tucked in among us on the chairs arrayed around the edges of the space, and on blankets and yoga mats in the center.

It’s a much snugger setup than the play had at its premiere 30 years ago as a site-specific work performed at the Lake in Central Park, around Bow Bridge. Mr. Wellman’s stage directions call for one far-off character, on a rock in the Lake, to use a bullhorn, while a 12-person chorus “is hidden amongst the bushes and reeds.”