Paul Rudnick is one of the funniest playwrights alive in his ability to cause the kind of laughter that requires gasping for air before internal equilibrium is restored. There's an alchemy at work in which ingredients both familiar and unexpected combust into a humor that might be mortifying if we couldn't see a truth behind it.
Best known for the play Jeffrey and the movie In & Out, Rudnick has not always been able to find a forum that can sustain his glittering wit. Ironically, in The New Century, now at New Conservatory Theatre Center, Rudnick manages to straddle both sides of the troublesome fence. The first act, sharply directed by George Maguire, is a collection of three scenes, essentially monologues that let Rudnick run riot with his zingers without having to sustain a plot over an extended time or develop relationships among multiple characters. In the second act, Rudnick concocts a situation to bring these characters and their stories together for a closure that can be forced if still not merrily punctuated.
While The New Century opened at Lincoln Center in 2008, two of the three first-act monologues had been previously produced, in 2004 and 1998, so the second-act melding of all characters would be surprising if it didn't come served with some lumps. By the way, though the word hasn't yet appeared in this review, the password is "gay." As in "GAY." As in "GAAAAAAAAY."
There are, in fact, a lot of letters on a banner strung across the stage in the opening scene: "PLGBTQCCC&O." We are at a mutated form of a PFLAG meeting, at which the current speaker, the brassily sarcastic Helene Nadler, wonderfully played by Helene O'Connell, is pressing her case as the biggest mother of them all. She relates how each of her three children came bounding out of the closet into lifestyles that pressed hard at her levels of tolerance. That daughter Leslie was a lesbian was an easy guess, 6-foot-4 Ronnie's decision to become a woman was a little harder to take, but she had issues when son David announced that he was not only into leather but also scat. "For a second, I lose it," Helene tells us. "I become my mother, I say, David, in this house we use the toilet, not a friend from Tribeca."
An NCTC production of a Rudnick play without Patrick Michael Dukeman would be like fruit without its zest, and as Mr. Charles, currently of Palm Beach, Dukeman gets to play the quintessential queen banished from New York because of his antediluvian nelliness. With his hair in an elaborate pompadour, and an outfit that you could run up a flagpole and 20 emerging nations would salute, Mr. Charles sashays his way through a local late-night cable access show in which he shares his philosophies of life, answers questions from viewers, and periodically gets to showcase his hunky "ward" Shane (Seth Michael Anderson) in a series of revealing outfits. Dukeman is explosively funny throughout the scene, and he tops it off with a 60-second recap of the history of gay theater, including Angels in America, both Parts I and II.
The tone shifts abruptly for the third scene, and the ingredients could easily become cloying if not for Rudnick's skill and Deborah Rucker's warm embrace of the material. She plays Barbara Ellen Diggs, who has become a highly competitive arts-and-crafts maven, and it's easy to laugh at her collection of handmade flyswatters and toilet-paper cozies. But her passion was born when she saw pictures of the AIDS Quilt laid out on the National Mall, and she created a piece for her late son. Though there are tears, Rucker's performance of Barbara Ellen's loopy life force brings us back to bluer skies.
After the intermission, Rudnick brings all his characters, without much effort at plausibility, to the maternity ward of a New York City hospital. The gathering offers up some foolish fun, and a serious moment or two about 9/11, before a final summation is required. "We're all in this together," Mr. Charles announces, "and there is only one way to fix this planet." If you're expecting a hint at the meaning of life, a mirror ball and some disco music will have to suffice.
The New Century will run at New Conservatory Theatre Center through July 11. Tickets are $22-$40. Call 861-8972 or go to www.nctcsf.org.