Theater

Sarah Ruhl delivers a brilliant comedy with ‘Stage Kiss’

Who are you and what have you done with Sarah Ruhl?

Ruhl’s built a sterling reputation — Pulitzer and Tony nominations, a MacArthur “genius grant” — with works invariably described as whimsical or quirky: “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” and “In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)” among them.

But nothing prepared me for “Stage Kiss,” a comedy that aims for big laughs and hits its target.

The show’s also a prime vehicle for Jessica Hecht, whose riotous performance will easily rank among the year’s best. She’s been on a roll lately, most recently in “The Assembled Parties.” But her halting, fluttery delivery also makes her hard to cast.

Turns out those mannerisms actually are perfect for “Stage Kiss,” in which Hecht plays an intense actress who lands a gig in a revival of a 1932 flop. Unfortunately for the unnamed She, her ex-lover in the show is played by her ex-lover in real life, the equally unnamed He (Dominic Fumusa, of “Nurse Jackie”).

Add to this volatile situation a spineless director (Patrick Kerr) and an ­eager-but-untested understudy, Kevin (Michael Cyril Creighton), and things quickly get complicated — and hysterical.

During rehearsal, Kevin confesses that not only is he “not straight,” but “I just have this awful fantasy that I’ll kiss a woman onstage and everyone will be like, you know, yeah right, whatever.”

Leading us all the way to the show-within-a-show’s opening, the first act of “Stage Kiss” expertly blends demented slapstick and a spot-on spoof of overheated ’30s melodramas.

Later, He and She move on to a gritty 1970s-style drama requiring them to do, respectively, Brooklyn and Irish accents — “regular or northern?” He inquires.

The pace slackens only when Ruhl adds bittersweet overtones about art imitating life, and vice versa.

All well-put and even poetic, but you’re more likely to remember the sight of the open-mouthed Kevin lunging on the reclining She for an epic smooch.

Funny: There’s nothing like it.