In the grace moments of “Stereophonic,” when the band at the center of the narrative is in the zone, owning the booth, while the engineers are locked in at their station inside the claustrophobic Sausalito recording studio, when the amps are pulsing and the bass is thrumming as the push and pull of the various members’ knots and threads come undone, there’s nothing else like it. These moments come few and far between.

Broadway’s latest smash play has touched down in San Francisco. “Stereophonic,” now on through Nov. 23 at the American Conservatory Theater’s Curran Theater, presented in association with BroadwaySF, racked up nearly universal acclaim and the most Tony Award nominations for any play in history, 13 across 10 categories, and won five, including Best Play.

Written by David Adjmi, with music and lyrics by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, “Stereophonic” tracks a British-American rock band’s various stages of recording their next album in Sausalito, 1976, and the drama that unfolds over the many months. Set entirely in a recording studio, the play charts the course of them receiving a massive budget for the album as all hell breaks loose between band members and engineers in a stoned and coked-out haze as they all aim for greatness, even if it seems impossible.

The allusions to Fleetwood Mac are impossible to ignore, especially the troubled production around their legendary album, “Rumours.” Slapped with a lawsuit, settled out of court, over similarities to Ken Caillat’s book “Making Rumours,” the play persisted on Broadway and was quickly a hit. It’s not hard to see why. With Adjimi’s mile-a-minute dialogue and Butler’s endlessly catchy original songs, this is a piece almost mechanically engineered to play as an across-the-board crowdpleaser. Therein lies the problem.

Little in “Stereophonic” pushes boundaries or unravels threads. Instead, this wildly competent play situates itself comfortably in second gear and happily idles. Adjmi’s writing is crisp and precise, each character is so clearly defined and their dynamics with every other member of the ensemble are immediately elucidated within the show’s opening sequence, a rapid fire exposition-hidden-as-banter barnburner replete with overlapping conversations and sound checks. The instant gratification of their Aaron Sorkin-esque banter hitting the ear is nullified by heart-on-sleeve performances that obviate any need for subtlety. In a space so confined and primed for conflict, the characters’ various imbittered battles are made too obvious and deflate the stage.

Hyperintelligently constructed pitter patter between egocentric bandmates at their wits’ end alongside their foolishly amusing engineers should be a slam dunk, but the dialogue’s precision demands a learned yet casual rigor that this ensemble unfortunately lacks. Instead, they often stumble through or drop lines that should reverberate through an audience. Adjmi’s lengthy stretches between characters are always charged with tension and ratcheted to the nth degree, yet they never escape an overwrought slant.

Maybe this didacticism is a result of this abridged version of the play, which has been dubbed “The Radio Edit” in an author’s note found in the show’s playbill. It would make sense, given how most conversations play out in alien terms. Conflicts and resolutions are introduced and dropped with alarming speed or agonizing sluggishness. There seems to be a “Best Of Compilation” effect at play here that lessens the impact of the highest highs, yet highlights the lowest lows.

Diana, the band’s ostensible lead singer, is in a more than turbulent relationship with Peter, the brash and cold frontman whose ambitions seem bigger than these walls can bear. Diana often mentions not wanting to be forced, how she resents the pigeonhole everyone around her seems desperate to make her fit into. Ironic, then, that much of her and everybody’s dialogue feels forced out to land with an intended realistic resonance. In crafting an unimpeachable fly on the wall scenario, Adjmi robs his own words of risk and reward in favor of meandering, yet grounded, traipses into greened-out dead ends.

Wherever a dead end appears in the writing, the show thankfully has a reliable exit strategy: throw everyone in the recording booth. So much works against the show, but there is no mistake that, at its highs, this thing soars. When these disparate personalities are all bunched up in that booth working and reworking these vaguely 1970s-sounding hits, despite their distinctly mid-2010s sound, “Stereophonic” flies so high it’s hard to catch sight of it.

No matter how incongruous or anachronistic Butler’s songs are, they are undeniable. Nearly every song bursts forth from the stage with a passionate urgency that sends a shiver down your body. Butler’s prowess is so fit for the magic of live theatre. His songs are delicate and brash at once and always illuminate some conflict within the band far more gracefully than the dialogue between members.

A centerpiece sequence where the band intensely bickers back and forth over how to record “Bright,” a sky-high rock ballad if there ever was one, into the wee hours of the morning is a knockout. In the characters’ process-centered conflict, often fighting over technique and form, the performances and writing shine.

Tensions like these don’t tighten as strongly in the booth without the more overwrought establishment of them, yet the hidden or out-in-the-open bursts of passion inside that booth drive the show. Once “Bright,” take 22, begins, it’s not long before it brings down the house. It’s hard to imagine it could end.

Studying the process of these dementedly-driven musicians striving to create something to be proud of, something that comes from the deepest parts of their souls, is always compelling. Watching their internal and interpersonal conflicts manifest through art will always be more compelling than didactic monologues at each other fashioned as couples therapy vérité.

Throughout the show, its highs and lows alike, Daniel Aukin’s sublime direction balances everything out. A show like this, which brings the claustrophobia of producing an album in a confined space to the fore, lives and dies by its blocking. Aukin bluntly but masterfully arranges his performers like chess pieces and crafts a striking composition with them in every scene.

The elevated stage for the booth to stand on provides a natural power imbalance with those at the engineering booth-cum-conversation pit that houses the more interpersonal anxieties. Aukin makes brilliant use of this dynamic set, so painfully beautiful and reverential of its time and space as most 70s pieces succumb to, and the strained relationships it houses, especially in scenes where the band actually records a track.

Whenever the volatile and gorgeous creative process is spotlighted, “Stereophonic” is untouchable. There’s an addictive quality to those moments when the cast rocks these songs, singing live with a mix of striking voices and channeling real passion through their respective instruments. They’re the only times the play’s heightened emotions are tangible. It’s unfortunate for a show that openly proffers a more realistic vision of an ensemble onstage. Theatricality is a real beast to tame, and sometimes it’s more sensible to give into the demands of the stage than fight against its current.