Lawson Taitte

Apparently being a theater critic is good training for writing verbally rich, ebullient comedy. George Bernard Shaw certainly picked up the knack. Now, more than a century later, so has Tom Sime.

The former Dallas Morning News writer recently left his job as managing director of Contemporary Theatre of Dallas to move to New York. There, his company, the Modern Stage, along with Joe and Sandi Black, will produce several of his new plays.

First up will be My Favorite Animal, which Dallas got a taste of Friday as a workshop production in the Teatro Dallas space. It's the lightest and most commercial of the three Sime plays performed locally in the last year or so, and it's also the most completely realized.

We're in the office of a not-too-successful therapist named Jerry (Josh Hepola). He's wrapping up a session with Herman (Shane Strawbridge), who believes his own weight problems are glandular but is sure his wife is gaining because she lacks discipline. As Jerry gets ready to go to dinner with his mom (Sylvia Luedtke), a walk-in patient, Randi (Trista Wyly), desperately seeks his help. A man who waited on her at a store (David Lugo) is stalking her, but that's the least of her problems.

Like the playwright's other work, My Favorite Animal contains fantastic, not to say fairy-tale, elements. Here, though, they're simply a given. This play is close to farce, without the metaphysical implications or the baroque intricacy of its predecessors.

Eventually the situation in Jerry's office evolves into a highly unorthodox group therapy session, really more of a hostage situation, actually. The twists and turns of the plot, and the characters' quips, are often explosively comical, though I noticed a few repetitious motifs that will doubtless get trimmed during the rewrites. Thanks to director Phyllis Cicero, the actors stay grounded in a beautifully low-key, natural style even in the most far-fetched moments. They're all the funnier for it.

PLAN YOUR LIFE Through Aug. 24 at Teatro Dallas. Runs 110 mins. $25. 1-800-595-4849; www.themodernstage.com.

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