This triptych of comedies by Elaine May, David Mamet, and Woody Allen while enjoyable throughout saves the best for last: Allen's wildly funny Central Park West. Under Dennis Stilger's smartly-paced direction, Allen's neurotic, angst-ridden Manhattanites are hilariously observed as they navigate through their adulterous affairs that come to light. Allen's witty one-liners and put-downs keep an audience howling. Allen himself, in the guise of nerdy Howard (Tom Schulz), almost seems to be up there on stage. Shulz's mannerisms and delivery are clearly intended to mimic the writer-actor, providing a strong comic payoff.
Phyllis (Becky LeCron Poschinger), an analyst, and Sam (Darren McGee), a lawyer, have been married for 12 years. Phyllis has just found out that Sam's been having an affair with her best friend Carol (Rhonda Allen), a shopaholic married to Howard, a writer. ("A failed writer," Phyllis acidly points out when Howard tells people what he does.) Poschinger is terrific as the sharp-tongued Phyllis, and Allen, as the foolishly romantic Carol, is the perfect foil for her. McGee's cock-of-the-walk Sam, Schulz's wimpy Howard, and Amy Mehl Romines as Juliet, a latecomer to the loopy scene, also shine brightly.
Allen's piece de resistance is preceded by May's Hotline, in which a hooker (Shelly Mehl), claiming she has made up her mind to kill herself, toys with and drives to distraction the young male volunteer (Josh Kroll) who takes her call at a suicide prevention center, and Mamet's An Interview, in which a verbose, hairsplitting attorney (Glen Lawrence) at the gates of Hell is put through a torturous, Kafka-like interview by a seductive yet elusive and bored attendant (Raquel Cecil). There's a sad overlay (no pun intended) mixed with a jaded self-awareness to Mehl's embittered, spiteful prostitute. "I don't have any friends because I'm unpleasant," she tells a fast-food delivery girl (Katerina Tamburro) as she listlessly searches for coins to pay her. In An Interview, the comely Cecil is as watchable and ominous as a coiled cobra, while Lawrence's ethically- challenged attorney dances and skips his way around the question that time and again is thrown at him: "Did you bury the lawnmower?" Three cheers for the zany pleasure these plays give.
