If you’re in the mood for some dastardly fun this Halloween, October’s selection of recent plays includes some truly seat-squirming predicaments, as well as delightfully skewed takes on familiar material.

Oh, Grow Up!
Mercy, by Laura Cahill, focuses on a group of ordinary Upper West Side twenty-somethings, adrift somewhere between adolescence and maturity. Sarah and Isobel are recovering from broken relationships, and repairing the damage is the chief item on their agenda. So Sarah calls Bo, a sometimes-actor turned singer, asking him to dinner. But Bo has dinner plans with Stu—an obstacle Sarah easily eliminates by inviting both men to dinner, where it turns out that Stu also happens to be the ex from whom Isobel is trying to recover. It’s the dinner party from hell. There are broad gaps in what we know about the four characters who come together for this impromptu dinner. Indeed, they are grasping for details themselves. But Cahill’s writing is expert and funny—in particular the dinner table interaction between Bo and Stu, virtually in counterpoint to the other conversations. Two males, two females. [ISBN 0-8222-1716-3; $5.95; Dramatists Play Service]

By The Beautiful Sea?
Christopher Durang’s Betty’s Summer Vacationsounds like light comedy, and while it is wickedly funny, it offers much more. Betty rents a house at the seashore with her friend Trudy and several others. Among the motley bunch are Keith, who carries a shovel and whose feet do not reach the floor when he sits, and Buck, who is ready to jump at anything that moves, including Keith. There is also Trudy’s mother, Mrs. Siezmagraff, who, despite her name, never “detected” that her husband (now dead) sexually abused Trudy. To make matters worse, she takes in Mr. Vanislaw, a flasher she picks up on the beach, who reminds her of said husband. If all of this sounds like a daytime talk show, that is the point. Durang’s combination of silliness, horror and nonsense is a devastating salute to the scandal-obsessed America of the 1990s. Two males, two females. [ISBN 0-8021-3661; $13; Grove Press]

Taking Stock
Victoria Phillips is an investment banker facing imprisonment on charges of insider trading. She wants Richard O’Neill as her defense counsel. Unfortunately, O’Neill, disgusted with the justice system, has become a novice in a Franciscan monastery. Victoria tracks him down, wins over the reluctant lawyer with her “felonious criminal idealism,” and loses her heart to him. This is the essence of Getting And Spending, a delightful comedy by Michael J. Chepiga. The first act establishes the basic premise and ends with Richard agreeing to defend the persistent Victoria. The second act focuses on the trial. Along the way we also meet two unusual monks; Victoria’s friend and frequent escort, Charles; and Victoria’s mother, who unwittingly started the insider trading mess and is now the chief witness for the prosecution. Five males, two females. [ISBN 0-573626-979; $6; Samuel French]

Adam And Steve – Really
In The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, playwright Paul Rudnick presents a God-like, high-tech stage manager who sets the scene for the Creation and introduces us to history’s first lovers, Adam and Steve. We next meet two endearing and amusing lesbians, named Jane and Mabel. In Rudnick’s Eden, same-sex love was there first. As his revisionist Old Testament eventually gives way to the modern Eden—we know of it as Central Park—cast members start appearing in various guises. One hops onto the Ark as one of the two surviving rabbits, then appears as a glittery Pharaoh whose God-like stance causes Adam to ask, “If you’re really God, why are you wearing so much eye makeup?” The same actor later appears as a Connecticut WASP playing Santa in a homeless shelter. Another actor starts out as a priest, turns into Moses and finishes as a bikini-clad go-go dancer. Not everything works, but The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told is a fitting follow-up to Rudnick’s Jeffrey. Four males, five females. [ISBN 0-8222-1720-1; $5.95; Dramatists Play Service]

Three For The Show
Power Plays is a highly entertaining trio of comedies by Elaine May and Alan Arkin. In “The Way Of All Fish,” Ms. Asquith, an executive, and Miss Riverton, her meek secretary, have dinner. Once several glasses of wine take effect, the mouse begins to roar by revealing her fantasy of gaining fame by killing someone famous. The second play, “Virtual Reality,” brings together two characters hired to unload (and possibly dispose of) some shady merchandise. De Recha, like Ms. Asquith, likes to be in control and so insists on a trial run of the job. What he doesn’t expect is that his assistant, Lefty, will get carried away with the dramatic possibilities. “In And Out Of The Light” takes place in the office of a dentist longing for sexual adventure with his new female assistant. Complicating matters is the doctor’s son, who decides that this is the night to tell his father that he wants to drop out of dental school and into a gay lifestyle. And then enters Wanda, a phobic patient with a dental emergency. Two males, two females. [ISBN 0-573626-987; $6; Samuel French]

Northern Exposure
For a bit of a change of pace, Angelique, by Lorena Gale, is the story of Marie Joseph Angelique, a slave owned by Francois Poulin de Francheville of Montreal in the early 1730s. Francois and his business partner, Ignace, discuss their slaves as one might imagine speaking of race horses. Angelique is, after all, a fine specimen, and so she should breed with Ignace’s slave, Cesar; her sexual favors should be made available to Francois as well. Angelique, however, has other ideas—about being free and having a relationship with a white servant named Claude. The play begins with Angelique’s execution, and then flashes back to fill in the details. Unfolding in a fast-paced series of short scenes, the play falters occasionally, but its final scenes build to a crescendo of substantial force, with a stunningly poetic conclusion. [ISBN 0-88754-585-8; $13.95; Playwrights Canada Press]

Kid’s Stuff
Anchorage Press has always excelled in offering plays for young people. Recent additions to its catalog include an excellent adaptation of Huckleberry Finn by Rita Grauer and John Urquhart, suitable for a touring production. Another, The Taste Of Sunrise, by Susan L. Zeder, blends spoken English with American Sign Language for its story of the coming of age of a deaf young man. Baba Yaga And The Black Sunflower, by Carol Korty, is an unusual fantasy inspired by traditional Russian folktales. [POBox 8067, New Orleans, LA 70182; 504-283-8868] sd