Paul Rudnick knows his way around a gag, and if gags were all that a play needs, Mr. Rudnick's most recent play, "The New Century," would be a smashing success. Alas, they're not, and the play's not, either.

"The New Century" is about aging and coming to terms with life. Its first three scenes feature three different middle-aged (or older) adults who each has some tie to New York's gay scene, while the final scene brings all of the characters together. Scene 1 is titled "Pride and Joy" and introduces Helene (Dana Hooley), a Jewish woman from Long Island whose three children have each come out to her. Her daughter is a lesbian, one son is transsexual, and the third son is gay and into scatology (I'll let you look it up, but it's pretty disgusting). Helene tries to be accepting of all of her children, but her Jewish mother impulses are reeling from their rejection of her. In Scene 2, "Mr. Charles, Currently of Palm Beach," we meet a Liberace-type gay man (Phil Johnson) who has been, by his own admission, banned from New York because he is too old and keeps having "nelly" attacks. In an attempt to re-capture his youth, he has taken in a club kid (Noah Longton) as a "ward" and set himself up with a public access cable show that airs at 4 am. After intermission, "Crafty" introduces Barbara Ellen (Jacque Wilke), a Midwestern mom who makes and sells her own tchotchkes. As it turns out, she had a gay son who moved to New York, contracted AIDS, and died. Now, this scene does not sound funny as I describe it, but let me assure you that it has by far the best one-liners. Finally, in "The New Century," Helene, Mr. Charles, and Barbara Ellen all end up in New York, where they confront their own lives and how life cycles repeat themselves, hopefully improving as they go.

This is a very gay, very New York play, so New York that a gag on which the title hinges refers to a landmark that gay men in New York would know instantly but with which many non-New York audiences would be unfamiliar. Eventually, the gag is explained, but when you have to do that it isn't much of a gag. And, being a gay play there is a moment of gratuitous male nudity, which is cleverly labeled as such in the script. Fortunately for everyone concerned, it involves Mr. Longton.

All three of the stories deal in stereotypes, but the actors don't always play them that way. Ms. Hooley only suggests her character's New York Jewish accent, and the contradictions between her attempts at tolerance and her natural penchant for control are more talked about than shown. Mr. Johnson doesn't seem to have a nelly bone in his body, though his costumes and helmet hairpiece are perfect (crack designer Jennifer Brawn Gittings strikes again). Only Ms. Wilke finds a balance between playing the ridiculousness of her Midwestern craft-loving Mom against the true pathos of losing her son to AIDS (the moment where Barbara Ellen described the AIDS quilt panel she made for her son had me chuckling and tearing up simultaneously).

Director Igor Goldin is a New Yorker, but he hasn't been able to solve the problems presented by Southern California actors trying to play New Yorkers. In fact, his direction struck me as kind of lazy. Perhaps he was distracted by thinking about the off-Broadway production of the musical, "Yank!" that he'll be opening shortly.

Despite the problems with the play and the production, there is still a lot of laugh-out-loud fun to be had. So, go and have a good time, enjoy the laughs, and don't try too hard to figure it all out.

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