"Was Shakespeare a Jew?" someone asks in David Mamet's new play, only to be met with "No. He was a fag." In this rhythmically disciplined farce, set in an American courtroom as a Middle East peace conference takes place somewhere in the same city, Mamet prolongs the lavender period inaugurated by his previous full-length work, Boston Marriage. That was a period comedy about lesbians, in which Mamet essayed camp, an unlikely foray from the man who patented American male bravado in more substantial works such as American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross.

Romance gives us a gay prosecutor, played by an uptight, round-rimmed-spectacled Bob Balaban, trying a vague case that eventually dovetails with the peace conclave. The prosecutor's home life is in disarray; his trim partner, Bernard, appears to be a hearth-and-home-loving homosexual, a portrait that would shriek "Cliché!"were not most other characters in this 100-minute evening equally risible.

The playwright twits types - gay and Jewish in particular - that he knows well, and that he knows will be healthily represented in his Manhattan audience. Under Neil Pepe's Mamet-attuned direction, laughs are provoked at a steady pace, and if the first act, with its unpromising opening scene, lags here and there, the second erupts into a full-out farce.

If I cannot be unreservedly enthusiastic about this comedy - Mamet must have sensed that Romance lacks a satisfying pay-off - I can still hoist a glass to the actors, especially Larry Bryggman's judge. Though not unappreciated as a performer, Bryggman has been relatively undervalued in New York: he originated the role of the father in Proof and most recently was part of the superb ensemble of Twelve Angry Men. With his mop of light-brown hair and his brush moustache, Bryggman resembles a central-casting Swiss watchmaker, a symbol of order subverted by his Romance assignment. Pill-popping, rude and dishevelled, he helps keep Romance enjoyable.

Tel +1 212 239-6200