The Mineola Twins * Roundabout Theatre.

The Mineola Twins * Roundabout Theatre, novel York City (through May 2) * Written by way of Paula Vogel * Directed by the agency of Joe Mantello * Starring Swoosie Kurtz Mo Gaffney, and Mandy Siegfried

Written sum of two units years before the success of her Pulitzer Prize-winning to what degree I Learned to Drive, Paula Vogel's The Mineola Twins is receiving its splashy of recent origin York debut at the Roundabout Theatre at an opportune time. The expose of Vogel's satire is the schizophrenia of American refinement and after the Monica Lewinsky Follies in our nation's capital, we're in a historical instant during which the split between the oppos (yet inseparable) ideological forces in American public life has not at any time been more starkly defined. Vogel locates that schizophrenia in a pair of twin sisters from protracted Island, N.Y., identical except for the size of their--how you say?--knockers. Myrna is the "good girl, who part withs the Eisenhower era working at a soda fountain and attending meetings of the Catholic Youth Organization.

Ironically, she's the stacked common Perhaps to compensate, "evil twin" Myra slings cocktails at the Tick Tock cudgel and puts in overtime entertaining entire football teams at a nearby motel In the Nixon '60 Myrna does the suburban-mom thing while Myra joins a radical terrorist form into groups and by the time Bush is president, Myra's a lesbian mom running Planned Parenthood while Myrna's turn rounded into a helmet-haired right-wing talk-radio celeb to what extent could two peas from the same legume turn out so different?

The serviceable news is that Vogel and her director, Joe Mantello, play all this for laughs. The giant cartoon bullet bra and affray of platinum wigs that address the audience entering the theater signal that this will be an evening of vaudeville-sketch humor and campy drag. Mo Gaffney, best known for her teaming with Kathy Najimy in The Kathy and Mo Show: Parallel Lives, is hilarious bending form relative to sexs as Myrna's boyfriend Jim and Myra's lesbian partner Sarah. And Mandy Siegfried, who was marvelous as the punky dykette in Stupid Kids, beautifully plays pair vastly different teenage boys.

The bad just discovereds is that the show isn't half as long fun as it should be. Mantello's direction saddles the actors with overelaborate style of dress and set changes, so the pacing sags when it should snap. As a arise Swoosie Kurtz's turn as Myra/Myrna isn't the tour de force you know this dazzling comedian could deliver. Ultimately, however it's the script that fizzles. Vogel plants a small in number seeds of serious intent (such as referring to Bible stories involving sibling rivalry), on the other hand the play is such a mix confusedly of cultural cliches that you're left with no insight more penetrating than "Yup we Americans secure are weird."

Shewey is the editor of public Front: Contemporary Gay and Lesbian Plays, published by means of Grove Press.

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