Stephen Adly Guirgis’s best-known play has the kind of title that sends mainstream news outlets like this one scrambling to decide how to refer to it without actually, you know, using that word. The comedy, which The Boston Globe calls “The [Expletive] With the Hat,” was a Broadway hit in 2011 and opened Sunday at SpeakEasy Stage Company, where it runs through Oct. 13. Don Aucoin’s review runs in the Globe on Tuesday.

Recently in New York, Guirgis (pronounced GEAR-gis) sat down to talk about the play, and the language in it, at an Upper West Side restaurant where a table of children was just a few feet away. While they were within earshot, the 47-year-old playwright’s speech was rated G.