‘Practice...perfection...performance.” This mantra engulfed the lives of two young boys growing up in Canada. Richard Greenblatt and Ted Dykstra both had pursued the dream of becoming world-class piano virtuosos. Working together in a production after they had abandoned their original goal and had become actors, they discovered that they had lived “parallel lives.”

Their reminiscences about common experiences with overbearing parents, eccentric piano teachers, heartless adjudicators and countless hours practicing turned into a 20-minute skit.

From that came the two-man show, “2 Pianos, 4 Hands,” that is currently making its New Hampshire debut at the Peterborough Players.

According to the play’s website, more than 5 million people have seen this play since it was first workshopped in Toronto in 1995. From its humble beginnings, it has been performed for sold-out audiences across Canada and in London, Tokyo and Australia and had successful runs off-Broadway and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. This is no small accomplishment for a story about unfulfilled ambitions.

The play might be more appropriately titled “2 Pianos, 4 Hands and a Huge Supporting Cast.” In under two hours, the performers portraying Ted and Richard depict the lives of the two young men as they progress from their earliest piano lessons at age 10 to their lives as teenage prodigies to the moments when they have to confront the reality that, despite their training and talent, they were not ever going to solo at Carnegie Hall. In addition, they morph seamlessly in and out of the characters who contribute to this journey: the unrelenting parents, a succession of piano teachers who gave conflicting advice, the hapless emcee at a Kiwanis piano competition for young players, an abusive drunk at a piano bar. Originally, Dykstra and Greenblatt who co-wrote the script, also did all of the touring. But as its popularity and demand grew, they began to audition for actors/pianists who could fill their roles.

Here is the interesting fact that emerges when you read the biographies of Tom Frey (Ted) and Jeffrey Rockwell (Richard) who appear in the Players’ production — they both seem to have led parallel lives with the play’s creators. Their own backgrounds have equipped them for demands of this play: you must be able to inhabit a number of personalities with split-second timing, master a range of skills from physical slapstick to poignant self-examination, all the while performing credible renditions of Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Beethoven and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Not only do Frey and Rockwell successfully demonstrate all of these skills, they are apparently so comfortable with the material that they can play either role. Frey is also the director of this production, having previously played both Ted and Richard hundreds of times. Originally, Rockwell was to play the part of Ted and a different actor was cast as Richard. A small note clarified the changes that took place after the Players’ program was printed, yet both performers comfortably inhabit the material and the specific idiosyncrasies of their characters.

Frey’s Ted is the more confident and sometimes irreverent of the two. He uses not only his piano skills but engaging facial expressions and adept physicality bring to life all of his characters. Rockwell is the more intense of the pair, especially when he depicts Ted’s demanding father, who has burdened his son with his own unfulfilled ambitions. Both of them are extraordinary actors and, to my untrained ear, accomplished pianists.

The story unfolds on a bare stage dominated by two grand pianos with a gilded frame hanging over each of them that projects simple graphics suggesting different occasions and settings. It begins as the two performers enter from opposite sides of the stage dressed in full concert regalia. They flip their tails as they take their positions and then the unexpected happens. In a series of pantomimes they convey that something is amiss and proceed to frantically swap first pianos and then benches. It is not until several minutes of discomfort have passed, informing the audience that this will be no ordinary recital, that they begin to play Bach’s “D Minor Piano Concerto.” While the piece begins credibly enough, it soon degenerates as they move back in time to their earliest introductions to the intimidating instrument. The endless practicing of scales soon escalates into a cutthroat duel.

For the rest of the first act, Frey and Rockwell shed their tuxedo jackets and alternate between portraying both the young students and the people who influenced them. From the memorable Sister Loyola, who ends every lesson with Ted to go upstairs and rest, to the Italian and French instructors who compare playing the piano to making love to a woman, the audience is treated to a hilarious series of vignettes. Who would have guessed that jokes about time signatures, major and minor chords, and mnemonic devices for remembering various progressions could be so funny?

In the second act both Ted and Richard are given harsh assessments of their talent and confront the reality that they won’t be able to live out the life they had imagined. They accept this philosophically as they continue to try to find a way to use the talent they have by pursuing various paths in the world of music, with increasing degrees of disaster. Fittingly, the play ends with them putting their jackets back on and performing an elegant and complete version of the music that opened the show.

For a play dealing with disappointment, “2 Pianos, 4 Hands” is surprisingly funny. And the music, a blend of serious classical pieces as well as riffs on pop music and such recognizable tunes as Schroeder’s piece from “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” got a positive reaction from the dress rehearsal audience on Tuesday night that also gave the hardworking duo a much-deserved standing ovation.

During intermission, I overheard audience members reliving their own early encounters with piano instruction and how the play brought back myriad mixed emotions. While I never got beyond mastering the tricky parts to “Chopsticks” and “Heart and Soul,” it is not necessary to have studied an instrument to feel a sense of frustration and lack of fulfillment. Each one of us, no doubt, has some “if only” moments in which we contemplate how things might have turned out differently if only we had been a bit more serious about pursuing a talent or skill. The lesson here is that sometimes the dream you deferred was probably not one that would have delivered all you hoped for.

The ultimate irony, of course, is that by abandoning their goals, the authors of “2 Pianos, 4 Hands” have reached far more people than they would have playing solos with world-class orchestras. On the eve of the debut performance of this work in 1966, Ted Dykstra said, “Our greatest fear is that classical musicians will say, ‘Well, for actors, they’re pretty good piano players’ and that actors will say ‘For piano players, they’re pretty good actors.’” It turns out that they, and all the other performers who have taken Ted’s and Richard’s seats at their pianos, are more than pretty good at both.