A three-hour play that spans 18 years in the lives of two main characters is less a “slice of life” than a “life binge.”

But given that the famous title character of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s “Auntie Mame,” now being staged by P.T.D. Productions, regularly urges those around her to live life to the fullest, the play’s broad scope seems, in part, a reflection of her outsized persona.

At the outset, bohemian, eccentric free-spirit Mame (Janet Rich), in 1928, suddenly finds herself the ward of her young nephew Patrick (Ben Mercieca). Though the two get on marvelously, Mame butts heads with Patrick’s highly conservative trustee (Rick Katon), who decides to enroll Patrick in boarding school just as the market crashes, and Mame is forced to reinvent herself to survive.

The show is an ambitious one for any company to produce, let alone a community theater group. With 25 scenes, and tons of significant costume and set changes, “Mame” requires a versatile set and a stage crew that’s as well-rehearsed as the actors.

Fortunately, P.T.D.’s production has both. Joe York, Tod Barker and Dennis Platte’s scenic design includes retractable walls and a flap beneath a staircase that allows for furniture to be quickly trafficked onto and off of the stage. And because the script calls for: Mame’s apartment, decorated in various ways; a backstage portion of a theater; the toy department at Macy’s; a Southern plantation; Egypt; and the Matterhorn, P.T.D. necessarily had to be economical with its props and set pieces.

The stage crew carries a huge burden but works efficiently. Some blackouts feel long, but that's largely because Rich has several complete costume changes, and she’s in nearly every scene of the play.

Despite "Mame"'s many charms and usually short scenes, the show feels over-long. P.T.D.'s huge cast nonetheless handles the material pretty well (disappearing-accent issues nothwithstanding). Rich necessarily must carry the show, and she seems to have a ball while doing so, as does Marie Jones, playing Mame’s drama queen actress friend, Vera.

In supporting roles, Amy Griffith steals scenes as Mame’s Southern belle rival, and Caroline Huntoon, playing Mame’s worshipful secretary Agnes, earns big laughs while making her character lovably vulnerable and sweet.

Director Dennis Platte has taken on a huge project with “Mame,” and it’s a credit to him and the company that they manage to pull it off at all. By today’s standards, the play feels unwieldy, but Platte guides his cast well enough that the script’s moments of greatest comic potential are realized. Indeed, the primary directorial misstep in "Mame" involves the opening scene party, where background conversations are so loud that the audience must strain to discern the main dialogue.

And after all this time, Mame herself is still a relentlessly appealing character. As you watch her rollercoaster of a life unfold — after losing Patrick to boarding school, poverty drives her to take jobs as an actress, a phone operator, and a clueless sales clerk, then she marries a rich oil man who eventually dies, and in her widowhood, she writes her memoirs — you can’t resist rooting for the woman who insists that “Life is a banquet, and most poor (suckers) are starving to death.”

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.