Five for five 2nd Story Theatre’s perfect Wave BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

At 2nd Story Theatre, they joke that their Short Attention Span Theatre anthology evenings are like the weather around here — if you don’t like it right now, just wait 10 minutes. Well, Wave Three of the series doesn’t offer that advantage.

No, this time every one of the five playlets is a winner. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed myself more during their many years of these MTV-generation offerings. It helps that three are comedies. But another one is poignant, though saved from gushiness, and the other is dramatic, but not melo-so. The actors, who in the past have sometimes performed unevenly because some are 2nd Story students, range this time from good to terrific.

Ed Shea usually directs, but this time around two of the plays are directed by 2nd Story co-founder Pat Hegnauer, who is not regularly involved with this incarnation of the company. Hegnauer has always had a skillful way with intimate little closet dramas, and Katherine Snodgrass’s Haiku is a fine opportunity.

It starts out with Nell (Paula Faber) lovingly describing the birth of daughter Lulu (Amy Thompson) to her, as the girl sits mute, obsessively twiddling her fingers before her face. We come to learn that Lulu is autistic and prone to violent, out-of-control outbursts. "Did I do that?" Lulu asks when she notices a bruise on her mother’s arm. The haiku of the title are what, supposedly, Lulu creates in lucid moments, two volumes of which Nell has published under her own name.

What makes the piece more than about doting maternal compassion is the arrival of Billie (Emily Boisseau), Nell’s other daughter, a reluctant big sister. The story turns more interesting as Billie, resentful that most of her mother’s love and attention has gone to Lulu, only now is told that her sister is a savant. So into the dynamic mix of sibling rivalry and blind mother love comes the mystery of whether Lulu really is special in such a remarkable way, or whether their mother has been deluding herself.

Hegnauer also directed the closer of the show, traditionally a knee-slapper, and no exception this time. In David Ives’s Universal Language, Don (Richard Ring) is teaching the one-world language Unamundo, or so he says. Great premise, great opportunities to be silly. "How are you?" is "Harvard U?" "English" is "John Cleese." "Song," unfortunately, is "schlong," and since "poetry" is "poultry," he praises new student Dawn (Christin L. Goff) for being a fine "poultice." You get the idea. Funny word play, well executed by Goff and Ring.

Not only does Hegnauer show that she is as comfortable directing the uproarious as she is the heartfelt, she demonstrates that the process is much the same: just keep the actors emotionally honest, even when they are being ridiculous. That’s easy in a romantic comedy — who hasn’t been a fool for love?

In another example, the humor of John Patrick Shanley’s The Red Coat comes from the heedless, unabashed frankness of callow youth. The mini-play has high-school student John (Zack Geoffroy) tipsy from wine, outside a party, staring at the moon and hoping that Mary (Maryellen Brito) will show up. She does, he blurts his love; she smiles, life is good. The characters — and actors — being high-school student makes this work. Basking in all this innocent warmth, I could have sworn I heard cynical hearts thawing right and left around me.

Cleverly funny and timed with finger-popping precision is Sure Thing, by David Ives. It’s a writing tour de farce, variations on the theme of singles-bar pickup. First we watch as Bill (Michael Zola) polishes his line, shot down every time, simpering a deliciously ironic "Sure thing" as his spirits expire. He gets better at it, and she spins variations of her own, showing the female point of view — Rachel Morris raises Betty’s ire to hysteria at one point before brightening like a post-hurricane morn. Marvelous.

I’m grinning just thinking about what Marvin Novogrodski and Janine Weisman did with Extensions, by Murray Schisgal — such comic inventiveness as they physicalize the snowballing hilarity. Bob and Betsey Abbot, you see, are all dressed up with nowhere to go, she with a big black bow in her hair, no less. They nervously sit by the phone, bickering and playing gin rummy. I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you about what’s been keeping them on tenterhooks, because eventually our dissipating bafflement is much of the payoff. Tears-to-your-eyes funny, these two.

If you don’t usually like short-form plays or can catch only one of the three-weekend runs at 2nd Story this summer, be sure to catch this wave. It’ll sweep you off your feet.