The Bagel And The Rat

'80s rock, with its hair bands, codpieced lead singers, and rainbow-bright guitar heroes, was all about excess and pomp. It was hard to take seriously then; today it's experienced as gaudy kitsch. But as with all genres of pop music, catchy songs were what made bands like Journey, Poison, and Night Ranger popular in the first place, so these bands are as ripe for the Broadway treatment as popsters of any other era.

After successful runs in Los Angeles and off-Broadway, Rock of Ages has crash-landed at the Brooks Atkinson — noisy, flashy, and most of all, funny. The creators of the show smartly decided to play it entirely for laughs, and the result is an evening of pure escapist fun, exactly what a city weary of bad news needs.

The book, by Chris D'Arienzo, tells a story so self-consciously cliched it can't help bursting out of its boy-meets-girl envelope and turning on itself with in-jokes and outrageous mugging. Mitchell Jarvis, in a Jack Black-like turn, plays Lonny, a sound man at a rock club on the Sunset Strip who also functions as the narrator. "I wanted to explore deep and thoughtful theater," he complains late in the proceedings, but instead was hired for a show with "poop jokes and Whitesnake songs."

When aspiring rock star Drew (Constantine Maroulis), the taller, masculine member of the show's star-crossed pair, denies having referred to ingenue Sherrie (Amy Spanger) as a mere "friend," Lonny pops out of a side doorway to remind him, "Actually, you did." The show is loaded with self-reference and toilet humor; there's really nothing going on beneath the music and dancing and horsing around. But the action and the fun never stop, and they're all we need. This show is pure visceral experience. What it's about is the music.

The cast sings extremely well, and the band is kickass. This was undoubtedly the first and only time I'll ever actually enjoy hearing Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." Never has REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling" been so perfectly apropos as here, dramatizing a new-found gay love. Vocally, the show's finest musical moment is a duet by Drew and Sherrie of Damn Yankees' "Can You Take Me High Enough."

But the biggest applause was for a showstopping number built around Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," sung by Wesley Taylor as Franz. Franz is the flouncy son of a German developer who wants to replace the Strip's trashy but vibrant clubs with sterile strip malls. Defying his humorless, fun-crushing dad, Franz represents — nothing, actually, except a breakout role for the delightful Mr. Taylor. There's no depth here. It is what it is: surface sheen, happy noise, and songs with pounding hooks that you just can't get out of your head. Need a break from it all? Hop in your Speedwagon and Journey across the river Styx to 47th Street.

Rock of Ages plays until the final countdown at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 W. 47 St., NYC.

Patrick Stewart is a tough act to follow, but Hipgnosis isn't afraid: they've plunged into the roughened seas of the Lower East Side with one of New York's first Macbeths since Rupert Goold brought Mr. Stewart and Kate Fleetwood to our fair city for a brief reign of terror, first at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and then on Broadway.

This is also probably the first Manhattan Macbeth since another foul, bloody reign ended and a new, unusually dark-skinned thane became the hopeful leader of a violent nation. This color-neutral Macbeth, with the great Julian Rozzell in the title role, seems especially appropriate today. We tend to think of the play as being about lust for and corruption of power, about tyranny, cruelty and comeuppance, but this production seems to stress the fate of Scotland as much as it does those of its individual characters.

"I think our country sinks beneath the yoke," cries Malcolm as he and Macduff hatch their plan to take down the freshly minted tyrant; "It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash / Is added to her wounds." The two vengeful warriors shout through this crucial scene — too much so — as if to pound home the message that their mission is infinitely larger than themselves.

A good Macbeth must have, at minimum, a good Macbeth. The Hipgnosis team has tapped Mr. Rozzell, a founding member of the group and an actor of great range, magnetism, and subtlety. Lanky and sinewy, he prowls and arches over the stage, which is actually a brightly lit pit like a wrestling ring. As Macbeth battles conscience and guilt, sometimes reduced to crawling like a bug on the scuffed and bloodied white floor, the lights never dim. It's meant to suggest the broad-daylight productions of Shakespeare's time, with all atmosphere and suspense generated purely by the words and action.

Mostly, it works. The able cast is co-anchored by Elizabeth Mirarchi as a diminutive, highly focused Lady Macbeth and Richard Ugino as Banquo, both Hipgnosis regulars who shone in very different lights in The Caucasian Chalk Circle last year. Under John Castro's straightforward direction the characters march simply from scene to scene, stolidly pushing Shakespeare's inexorable story towards its fated conclusion.

The gauzy witches are a little scary and a little funny, their white wrappings vaguely resembling the nurses' outfits of the Stewart production; the banquet scene with Banquo's ghost is played partially (and I think intentionally) for laughs, a choice which ironically pays off by deepening our feeling for Macbeth's pain. Only occasionally, as in the build-up to Macbeth's downfall, when scenes fly by in quick succession, does the lack of scenery and lighting seem to strand the actors in an uncomfortable, Beckettian limbo.

This production can't help but labor in the shadow of its titanic predecessor. But, avoiding any temptation to bend Shakespeare out of shape for the sake of originality, the Hipgnosis group has realized a stirring, straight-up Macbeth. Mr. Rozzell's performance, with its youthful, blazing, and animalistic intensity, alone makes this production worth seeing, and there's a good deal more as well.

Macbeth runs through April 19th at the Flamboyan Theatre, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center, 107 Suffolk St., NYC. Tickets at Smarttix or call 212-868-4444. Photo courtesy of David Gibbs/DARR Publicity.

Written in 1893, Mrs. Warren's Profession wasn't publicly staged in England until over 30 years later. Its frank (though euphemistically phrased) treatment of prostitution was the obvious reason for the play's suppression, but its truly modern subject was the newly developing role and rights of working women. It's a testament to both Shaw's brilliance, and to the slow, fitful progress of societal change, that the play still feels pretty current.

The present production by BOO-Arts at Manhattan Theatre Source does very well by Shaw. Director Kathleen O'Neill, founder and director of the company, creates a pleasing, almost earthy sense of intimacy by placing the audience on two sides of the action. Shaw's dialogue is supremely fluent and expertly whittled, but also somewhat heightened; staging the play so that we're practically embracing the cast pulls a modern American audience into the action and helps make everything seem quite natural. Ms. O'Neill has grasped both the essential characteristics and the depths of Shaw's characters: not only the pivots of the story — the middle-aged madam of the title and her independent-minded daughter Vivie — but the four class-conscious men orbiting the women.

All the roles are very well cast, though some of the British accents are more successful than others; the excellent James Dutton, who plays Vivie's young, ne'er-do-well boyfriend/boy toy, has an advantage here, being British-born. His lounging, lunging, cynical Frank Gardner is like a prancing Wodehouse fop made suddenly self-aware. Broadway veteran Joy Franz is a magnificent Mrs. Warren, commanding the stage, revealing her history to her daughter with power and grace and pathos. Ashton Crosby is a delightfully humorous Rev. Gardner. Joseph Francini is an effective Praed, the aesthete of the group, and David Palmer Brown has a grand time with the meatier role of Sir George Crofts, who initially appears to be a cad and blowhard but turns out to be rather more, and less.

Caralyn Kozlowski is a wonder as Vivie, completely disappearing into her complex character, biting down on emotions, then opening up just enough for us to read her precisely, controlling herself and controlling the men with the only real power she has: her determination. She makes us laugh even as she faces the serious conundrum of woman's lot.

Including intermission, the play runs two and a half hours, but it zips by. It's actually one of Shaw's shorter plays, and as such it's done more often than some; still, this is a fairly unusual opportunity to see a top-notch staging with an excellent cast in an intimate setting. Mrs. Warren's Profession runs through April 18 at Manhattan Theatre Source.

David Feldshuh's Miss Evers' Boys has been around for 17 years, most notably in its 1997 Emmy-winning TV adaptation. But in the current production by the Red Fern Theatre Company it still feels as fresh as a spring rain.

The dazzling cast has something to do with this. Their superb performances, under the more than able direction of Melanie Moyer Williams, flesh out the disturbing story that Mr. Feldshuh's script tells so achingly.

Beginning in 1932, a government program which became known as the infamous Tuskegee experiment subjected a group of syphilitic African-American men in Alabama to a cruel study. Told they were being treated for their "bad blood," they were in fact denied treatment. The crude medicines of the time — and later, more egregiously, the lifesaving new drug penicillin — were withheld from the men, so doctors could study the ravages of the disease over time and determine whether blacks and whites were affected the same way.

Given this nightmarish scenario, with its numerous victims and its overtones of eugenics, the script is remarkably evenhanded. Feldshuh's central insight was to focus on the character of Eunice Evers, a selfless nurse who, believing she is doing her best for the men, wins their trust and cares for them through their years of illness and suffering. Framing the action, which takes place at the outset of the study and then fourteen years later, are snatches of Nurse Evers' testimony before Congress in 1972 when the whole horrid affair came to light.

Played with the utmost grace by Nedra McClyde, who was excellent in Victor Woo and TBA and gets a well-deserved central role here, Nurse Evers initially trusts the doctors running the study. She is so strongly animated by her calling that she never starts a family of her own; the men become her charges, and she comes to love them dearly. But as Nurse Evers loses faith and the anguish of her inner conflict grows, Ms. McClyde makes us feel both utter sorrow and powerful admiration for the character.

Though the racial attitudes depicted in the play are no longer dominant in our culture, the play remains vivid because its underlying themes are timeless. Conflicting loyalties and man's inhumanity to man never go out of style. More specifically, evidence of our nation's painful racial history lingers everywhere.  The play also has many old-fashioned virtues that have retained their effectiveness since the dawn of theater: lots of drama, painful scenes, funny ones, and colorful characters with complex personalities and distinct, sometimes exaggerated traits.

There's the sharp, mistrustful rebel, the high-spirited hoofer with dreams of stardom, the superstitious farmer quailing before the march of progress, and the illiterate elder with homespun wisdom. Played respectively by Garrett Lee Hendricks, Jason Donnell Bush, Marty Austin Lamar, and veteran David Pendleton, these men suffer separately and together through scenes of excruciating "treatment," joyful song and dance, agonizing decision-making, abnegation, struggle, and occasionally grace. They're a terrific ensemble, and each has beautifully-played individual scenes as well. The doctors too, both white and black, are, like Miss Evers, complicated people, dedicated professionals who believe they are doing right. They just can't see (in the case of the white doctor, played by Alex C. Ferrill), or overcome (in the case of the black doctor, played by the imposing Evander Duck), the twistedness of the situation in which they find themselves.

The stars seem to have aligned for this production: excellent actors perfectly cast, with a director who knows just how to seize on the strengths of Feldshuh's scenecraft. The show may be a little slow going at a few points and unnecessarily heavy on the pathos at the end, but the brilliant talent collected here has no trouble wiping the floor with these minor flaws. This Miss Evers' Boys is a triumph. It plays Thursdays through Sundays through April 5 at the Shell Theatre in the Times Square Arts Center, 300 W. 43 St. Tickets at Ovation Tix online or call 212-352-3101. A portion of the proceeds from this Red Fern Theatre Company production goes to benefit the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Foundation. Photo by Nathan Johnson.

In 1845 Frederick Douglass, already a famed abolitionist though not yet 30, sailed for Europe aboard a ship called the Cambria. Fleeing hostile forces in the United States who were making his activities difficult (to say the least), he received a hero's welcome in Ireland from crowds of sympathetic, long-suffering Irish Catholics familiar with his career and his recently published autobiography.

Douglass spent six months in Ireland, finding there the morale boost he needed to continue his crusade. I spent an hour and a half at the Irish Arts Center in New York on St. Patrick's day, getting my first taste of Donal O'Kelly's work. The Cambria concerns not Douglass's time in Europe but the ocean voyage itself. He and director Raymond Keane bring it to life as a richly fictionalized tale of colorful figures and high drama at sea. Embodied by Mr. O'Kelly and Sorcha Fox — both superb actors — these people are by turns amusing, inspiring, and a little scary.

Some of the characters are more faceted than others. Mr. O'Kelly's Douglass, always calm and dignified, is (no pun intended) the least "colorful" of all, the quiet eye at the center of the storm. His power is all in his words, but they are all he needs, some written for him by the playwright, others taken directly from Douglass's own eloquent works. Yet he's not without complexity; sent down to steerage when his first-class neighbor complains about the proximity of a black man, he observes, without sore indignation, "I feel at home among the mishmash of nationalities."

More violent personalities dance around him. A lively abolitionist, given a pitch-perfect American accent by Ms. Fox, is insufferably righteous. Ms. Fox also depicts a delightful little girl who refuses to believe that her new friend "Mr. Johnson" (Douglass incognito) is not a minstrel. She also plays male characters with complete conviction.

The skipper, the rueful son of a slave ship captain, has an evocative and gloriously staged (if perhaps not quite earned) Act Two revelation. A Southern slaveholder, also played by Mr. O'Kelly, makes an effective villain; if I were ignorant of American history I'd accuse the playwright of creating a caricature, but alas, the plantation owner's blind paternalism and cruelty were all too endemic; his descent into seething animal hatred feels both comical and real on a level deeper than realism.

Mr. O'Kelly's language is worthy of the mantle of the great Irish dramatists of the past — warm, poetic, funny, pained, sprightly yet always faintly weighted, but never bitter. "Never been at sea? You must have been mighty contented with your life on land." "Imagine not knowing your birthday." "Beware the Quaker choir ladies."

This play provides one of those concentrated, magical experiences one hopes for every time one takes one's seat in a theater. The Cambria had a limited run through Sunday, March 22 at the Donaghy Theatre at the Irish Arts Center in New York City.

Molière's Tartuffe is not one of those classic plays that need a lot of exegesis for the benefit of contemporary audiences. Though it dates from the 1660s, its vivid characters, uproarious humor, and theme of hypocrisy and scamming remain thoroughly understandable across the centuries. Nevertheless, many adaptations and "modernizations" that go beyond mere translation have been created and produced for English-speaking audiences, some in prose, some in rhyming verse like the original French. Richard Wilbur, Christopher Hampton, and many others have tried their hands.

Jeff Cohen's new rhyming-verse version is set in America during the Great Depression. His program notes relate this choice to the present economic crisis and in particular the breathtakingly audacious confidence men, like Bernie Madoff, who've had their part in it. I'd argue that Tartuffe's scheming is more akin to a different type of confidence game, that of the televangelists. Either way, though, the game is to separate a gull from his money (and/or position), not necessarily by lying to him, but always by taking advantage of one of his innate character traits, whether greed, insecurity, or something else.

Either way, too, Tartuffe is a play for our time, wherever and whenever one sets it, and Mr. Cohen understands this. His verse is primarily conversational, but it is elevated where it needs to be (as in some of Tartuffe's flowery outbursts, and the speeches of the prim, moralizing Cléante, mincingly portrayed by Brian Linden, who was so wickedly foppish in The Country Wife two years ago) — elevated, however, not into self-conscious poetics, but into the tones and rhythms of high comedy, especially American comedy, the line that runs from vaudeville through the great TV sitcoms of the 1950s.

To "fund" his vision of the play, Mr. Cohen, who also directed, has at hand an embarrassment of riches in the form of a superb cast. The production's publicity stresses the presence of Christina DeCicco, who plays Elmire, the sexy young wife of Orgon, Tartuffe's central victim. Ms. DeCicco is indeed excellent: agile, beautiful, and delightfully funny, she even gets to show off her singing voice in one hilarious moment (she played Glinda in the national tour of Wicked and it's no wonder).

But she is matched by the two male leads, Keith Buterbaugh as Orgon and the rubber-faced Tom Ford in the title role, and by Deanna Henson as the fiery maid Dorine, who is actually the household glue. Ms. Henson's command of the speedy verbosity required of her by Mr. Cohen's gushing script and rapid pacing is most impressive. Mr. Ford's Tartuffe is truly demonic — he's the very model of duplicity, utterly qualm-free about his plot to take control of his mark's fortunes, and equally bald-faced in his lust for Elmire even as he gleefully looks forward to marrying Orgon's lisping daughter Marianne.

Katia Asche plays Marianne as a pretend-innocent with a flair for emotional manipulation — one comes to feel that in different circumstances, she'd make a good female Tartuffe-in-training, though unlike that master manipulator, she is capable of love. Her paramour, the mock-heroic Valère (Rob Maitner), is funny and even a little touching, riding to the rescue in his preppy sweater. Susan Jeffries is exquisite as the hapless family matriarch, and Mr. Buterbaugh portrays her son, Orgon, as so willfully blind to Tartuffe's maleficence that we gape in amused horror. Ably representing righteous indignation is Aaron Costa Ganis as Orgon's wronged, stuttering son Damis, while Jasper Soffer makes a properly snooty Bailiff.

Mr. Cohen makes good use of the high, boxy space of @Seaport! with its big staircase; the effective, pastel set is by Alex Distler, while a couple of Anne E. Grosz's perfectly pitched period costumes are almost characters in themselves. Trying hard, I can squeeze out a small complaint about what seem to be references to Giuliani-Bloomberg era New York in the final scene with the Cop (Mark DeFrancis) — more concern for cops than the poor, etc. — but I'm reaching.

Speaking of cops and robbers, it's almost criminal that you only have to pay off-off-Broadway prices for the level of talent on display here. Go quickly, there are too few performances and not many seats at each.

Tartuffe runs through March 29 at @Seaport!, 210 Front St., across from South Street Seaport, NYC. Presented by Dog Run Rep. Tickets at Smarttix or call (212) 868-4444.

Photos by Erica Parise. 1) Tom Ford as Tartuffe and Deanna Henson as Dorine. 2) Christina DeCicco as Elmire and Keith Buterbaugh as Orgon.

Two Figaros for one low off-off-Broadway price — sounds like a good deal, right? Playwright Eric Overmyer adapted and concatenated Beaumarchais' original Marriage of Figaro (the play on which the famous Mozart opera is based) and a rather dark 20th century sequel, Figaro Gets a Divorce, into one extended Figar-anza — with music. It's a long night, an exercise in extremes, and an interesting concept. Unfortunately, half is also an ordeal.

In the 1930s, the German-language playwright Ödön von Horváth wrote a time-transposed sequel to The Marriage of Figaro. In Figaro Gets a Divorce, the Count, the Countess, the steward Figaro, and his wife Susanna have fled a 20th century Communist revolution into an efficiently run, unnamed but Germanic-style neighboring country. While the fallen Count enters a downward spiral of gambling and depression, Figaro returns to barbering in a small town. But marital issues and conflicting ideals push the barber and Susanna apart, and she ends up alone, waitressing in a cafe.

Transporting Beaumarchais' colorful characters, who are more emblematic than realistic, into a modern, bourgeois, somber-hued world, exploring what happens to the fallen nobility, and examining how the various servant characters at home and abroad might retain or transfer their loyalties is an interesting idea. But either von Horváth's play is very bad, or it has been adapted very badly.

Knowing a bit of Eric Overmyer's work, and judging from the high quality of his adaptation of the Marriage, which forms the first act of this production, I suspect the fault to lie with von Horváth's original work. (I was not familiar with it prior to this production.) Once the characters are situated in their new universe and some parameters are established, the story, such as it is, flies every which way. Each scene seems a disconnected vignette, and we quickly cease to care about those once-lovable characters. The political philosophy that gets poured on doesn't make up for it; it's facile and not effectively dramatized.  On top of all that, inexpertly played music and some goofy costume choices make a poorly conceived work seem poorly executed as well.

That's a pity, because, with nimble help from director Erin Smiley, Mr. Overmyer begins the evening with a clever, cheery, mostly well-played, compressed telling of the original late 18th century play, adorned with musical themes from Mozart's famous opera. The music comes from supporting cast members who double on an assortment of instruments, marching in and out, annoying the main characters — it's silly but quite funny.

More important, the leads are solid. Teddy Alvaro makes a witty and energetic (if a little too modern-ironic) Figaro, Ralph Petrarca a wry and funny Count Almaviva, and Kathryn Elisabeth Lawson a spry and winsome Cherubino.  Gillian Wiggin's Susanna is especially delightful; in this telling she bears the greatest dramatic weight, along with her share of the comic, and does it wonderfully well.  She alone makes the dreadful second half faintly bearable.

Fortunately, at off-off-Broadway prices, you will get your money's worth just from the first half. It's a minor tour de force of distilled, manic storytelling, expertly directed and nicely played. As for what Stephen King might call the evening's "dark half," enough said.

Through March 22 at the 14th Street Theater, 344 W. 14 St, NYC. Staged by the (re:) Directions Theatre Company. Tickets online or call (212) 868-4444.

What if there were a house in which only questions could be spoken? Does that sound, well, Jewish? What if I told you that the premise is that Harvey Krytz (Howard Green) had a rabbinical vision some 40 years ago, and has operated out of these mystical quarters ever since? Wouldn't you agree that he might need young assistants?

But wouldn't it be hard for them to remember the questions-only rule, or to resist rebelling against it? And then wouldn't they then suffer an unpleasantly biblical fate?

Could it be that this show is pretty much just an extended comedy skit? Then again, if it's fresh, crisply paced, and doesn't overstay its welcome, what's wrong with an extended comedy skit? How could Mr. Green, along with Cam Kornman (who plays his long-suffering helper, Margaret), be anything but delightful? And could they ask for support more solid than that provided by the funny Nick DeSimone as an unfortunate job applicant, and the glorious Snezhana Chernova as a defiant aide? (Is it disconcerting to see a character called "Miss Bingham" played by an actress with a Russian accent? Well, haven't you already figured out that this play is, after all, an exercise in absurdity?)

Does Ms. Chernova have a fan club? If so, can I join?

When you get right down to it, isn't it all about the fun playwright Tara Dairman has with the constant tension (and the humor) engendered by her conceit? Who'll slip up? Who'll escape from the Question House? Will we? Will you?

Can you find time to see The Question House before the Frigid Festival ends on March 8? Will you believe me when I say that you'll have a fun time?

(I couldn't be the first reviewer of The Question House to review it "in kind," could I? Does it matter? In any case, how'm I doing?

Every year I look forward to the Frigid Festival, and finally it's here.

That's a lie. In actuality, every year (this is their third) Frigid sneaks up on me, and all of a sudden there are all these interesting little productions happening all at once, and hardly any time to see them. Some are locally grown, but many are touring shows that drift about the continent, attempting to take root at whatever festivals they can get into. (A bit like bands, come to think of it). If I had no other responsibilities, I'd take the 12 days off and just hang around the East Village going from one Frigid show to the next.

John Hefner's The Hefner Monologues both is and isn't what you might guess from the title. Yes, it's monologues; no, they're not separate or independent. Yes, it's a guy named Hefner talking about his own life; no, his stories are neither fictionalized nor gaudily embellished (at least, he is able to convince us as much).

As personal tales are wont to, these include embarrassing moments, funny situations, life-changing experiences, revelations. We see Mr. Hefner in childhood, adolescence, and college years. One lesson learned: it's often the "silly little things" that make all the difference, things like finding you have a clean tissue to offer a pretty girl who's crying. Another lesson: being related to a famously unique celebrity (Mr. Hefner is a relation of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner) can be a curse, but the curse can also be lifted.

Mr. Hefner's non-relationship with his famous cousin is the surface element that holds the hour-long piece together, but what really makes the show more than a sequence of set-pieces is threefold. First, Mr. Hefner has skilfully woven the stories into a contiguous narrative whole. Second is the serious side of the subject matter, mainly the actor's attempts to deal with a difficult family legacy unrelated to the famous cousin. The third is the sheer force of Mr. Hefner's personality, which in this case is another way of saying his talent as an actor. While the stories may be true and unembellished, the delivery is bigger than life, often nearing (but never going over) the top.

Ah, "the top": that famous theatrical promontory which we all know when we see, but can never fully define. Mr. Hefner's presentation is almost too big for the tiny theater he's in. But one wouldn't want him to tone it down, any more than one would expect his famous relation to ever be anything other than the icon of indulgent excess he is. The Hefner Monologues is a modest-sized piece with a very big heart, and well worth your modest investment.

At the Red Room, 85 E. 4th St., in repertory as part of the Frigid Festival through March 8. See the schedule for dates and times.

One of Broadway's more exciting offerings this month is being served way down at the Access Theater at 380 Broadway, an off-off-Broadway house several miles south of the official "Broadway" district. Up three long, ancient wooden flights of stairs in a former sweatshop, a superb drama of international intrigue is playing.  And literally speaking, it's on Broadway.  So there.

Conversations on Russian Literature has all the elements of the great suspense stories of our age: two characters sitting in a park talking.

This one-act is the second and more substantial half of an evening of plays by David Johnston. Sitting on park benches — not even taking a walk in the woods — an American negotiator (Jonna McElrath) and an old Russian general (Frank Anderson) toss hot potatoes back and forth: their intellectual pursuits (hence the title), their personal histories, their own place in history, their practical and inner motivations for meeting.

By itself, this play is worth more than the price of admission. Skilfully, with music-perfect pacing, and with huge help from two superb performances and Gary Shrader's subtle, unobtrusive direction, the playwright reveals who these players really are and what brings them to this strange crossroads.

The setting is very specific: "The Patriarchs Pond in Moscow, Summer 2004, early evening." The time is important — less than two years after the Moscow theater hostage crisis, a turning point in Russian history, in which the authorities used an "unknown chemical agent" to free hundreds of hostages from Chechen terrorists. But one needs only a dim awareness of recent Russian history to appreciate this tense, funny production, just as one doesn't need to be familiar with the works of Turgenev, Bulgakov, or Chekhov, all of which are referenced as these two unforgettable characters probe for each others' soft spots. While very intellectually and historically aware, this play stands on its own merits.

The evening begins, however, with a playlet for which some knowledge of Russian theater (specifically Chekhov) is needed. But the cheap jokes and spirited performances in Play Russia aren't enough to make it more than very modestly amusing even as an in-joke. As a piece of meta-theater, it's no The Actor's Nightmare. Fortunately, the play is short, and the two works that follow it are better. In the swiftly paced, slightly experimental For Those Of Us Who Have Lived In France, two historical figures and one stereotypical middle-American housewife explain why they wish they could go to France and are sad they can't. David Lapkin's impression of Henry Kissinger is particularly amusing.

Johnston's mastery of the link between humor and pathos becomes seriously clear in Mothra is Waiting. A nightclub sister act has gotten old, to the point where drag queens are parodying it. One sister is ready to grab her last chance for a better life, while the other insists — screechingly — on waiting for the giant moth of the title to come and take her back to the island where the sisters once reigned as princesses. (Familiarity with classic Japanese monster movies is recommended!) It's a finely wrought absurdist miniature that leads us to expect much of the longer play that follows intermission. We are not disappointed. Don't miss this highlight of the winter season down on lower, lower Broadway.

Conversations on Russian Literature Plus Three More Plays by David Johnston continues through Saturday, March 7, with performances Wednesday through Saturday at 8:00 PM. Performances are at the Access Theater (380 Broadway, just north of White Street). Tickets are $18 ($10 during previews) and are available by calling SmartTix at 212-868-4444, or online.