A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City **

If you are not offended by the idea of a black comedy with cancer jokes, raunchy language and sexual situations set in a hospital room with two cancer patients lying silently in their beds, you are in for some very funny moments during this MCC production at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. You may feel guilty for laughing at times, but laugh you will. Good taste is not on the agenda. Karla (Beth Behrs of “2 Broke Girls” in a promising debut), a struggling comedienne with a potty mouth, tries out new comedy bits on her sleeping mother Marcie (the ever-watchable Lisa Emery). Don (a fine Eric Lochtefeld), a rumpled middle-aged guy dealing with a messy divorce and an unruly son, is visiting his mother Geena (Jacqueline Sydney) who lies in bed with a shaved head and has at most a handful of lines. Don and Karla get off on the wrong foot, but gradually share confidences and grow closer. There are several effective set pieces, either comedic or dramatic, with dry stretches in between. Too often getting an easy laugh trumps plausibility. Even a hilarious sex scene milks laughs for too long. The ending is weak. Nevertheless, the dialogue is snappy, the acting is fine and the attempt by playwright Halley Feiffer (I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard) to try something different is admirable. The hospital room set design by Lauren Helpern looks extremely authentic and the costumes by Kaye Voyce help define the characters. Trip Cullman’s direction is assured. Those not turned off by the play’s premise are likely to enjoy themselves for most of the time. Running time: 90 minutes.

I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard **

The best I can say for Halley Feiffer’s overwrought drama at Atlantic Stage 2 is that it offers a chance for Reed Birney to once again demonstrate that he is one of New York’s finest actors. As David, an embittered alcoholic playwright, he spends the first hour venting spleen against everyone involved in New York theater. His audience is his daughter Ella (Betty Gilpin), an aspiring actress waiting for the reviews of her performance as Masha in “The Seagull.” During the long first scene, Gilpin is called upon mainly to shriek, screech, scream, squeal and shout, to the point that I thought her character was developmentally challenged. David’s casual cruelty to Ella escalates as the evening progresses, fueled by wine, weed and coke, and finally reaches a breaking point. In the second scene, five years later, we learn that Ella has truly become her father’s daughter. Birney’s performance in this scene is absolutely riveting and Gilpin finally gets a chance to do more than make appreciative noises. Mark Wendland’s version of the kitchen of an Upper West Side apartment is appropriately claustrophobic. Jessica Pabst’s costumes are fine, especially her blood-red dress for Ella in the second scene. Trip Cullman directed. Although I really disliked the material, I was happy for the opportunity to see Birney in action. Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Women or Nothing **

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Whether or not you will enjoy Ethan Coen's new comedy for the Atlantic Theater Company depends largely on how much disbelief you are willing to suspend for some snappy dialogue and a few laughs. For me, accepting the premise of a pair of affluent sophisticated lesbians hatching a lame plot to trick a man into supplying the sperm for the child they want was too much of a stretch. Their plan makes little sense and is divorced from anything remotely resembling reality. On the plus side, the four actors (Halley Feiffer, Susan Pourfar, Robert Beitzel and Deborah Rush) play well together and two of the four scenes work quite well. Unfortunately, the final scene is a letdown. David Cromer's direction gets the most out of the script. Michele Spadaro's lavish set design of a Manhattan apartment incorporates a strange mixture of styles. Sarah Laux's costumes are apt. The play shows progress over Coen's recent one-act efforts, but still lacks the off-kilter inventiveness of a Coen screenplay. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes including intermission. NOTE: Avoid Row B at Atlantic's Linda Gross Theater -- there is no rake between Rows A and B and the seats are not staggered.

Medieval Play (Act One) [zero stars]

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It had to happen sooner or later -- encountering a play so bad that returning after intermission was unthinkable. Alas, today was the day and this was the play. It is hard to imagine that Kenneth Lonergan, author of "This Is Our Youth," "Lobby Hero" and the screenplay for "You Can Count on Me," is responsible for this pointless mess, now in previews at Signature Theatre.  His play "The Starry Messenger" last year was no great shakes, but it was a masterpiece by comparison. This one is allegedly a comedy about the misadventures of two 14th-century Breton knights, one idealistic (Josh Hamilton), the other cynical and not too bright (Tate Donovan). The melange of anachronisms, bodily function jokes, four-letter words and comic book violence might make a mildly amusing five-minute sketch on Saturday Night Live, but sitting through an hour and twenty minutes of it was painful. Staying for the remaining hour and twenty minutes would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. Most depressing of all, judging from the laughter, there was a substantial minority of the audience who loved every minute of it. Also in the cast are Anthony Arkin, Heather Burns, Halley Feiffer, Kevin Geer, John Pankow and C.J. Wilson.The storybook sets by Walt Spangler and costumes by Michael Krass were far more amusing that any lines in the play. The swordfights were well-staged by J. David Brimmer. Lonergan directed his own play, so he has no one else to blame. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes including intermission.