When it comes to life skills, Monty has his work cut out for him. He’s baffled by the sheer number of toothbrushes and deodorants to choose from. Necktie knots bedevil him. A movie date ends in fumbling and embarrassment.
The hero of Chad Beckim’s lovely new play, “After.,” Monty (Alfredo Narciso) isn’t a kid, but a quiet man in his mid-30s. He didn’t have a chance to learn the tricks of adulthood: Falsely accused of rape when he was a teenager, he spent 17 years in jail before being cleared by DNA evidence and released.
Now Monty is back at home, living with his younger sister, Liz (Maria-Christina Oliveras), and he’s got a lot to catch up on.
Produced by the Partial Comfort company (which gave us the Obie-winning “A Bright New Boise”), “After.” is a far cry from docu-plays like “The Exonerated.” Beckim has a light touch, and his piece, sensitively directed by Stephen Brackett, is equally sweet and funny.
Most of the humor comes from the two people who reach out to Monty and just happen to be socially inept dorks. They compensate for their own maladjustment with chatty oversharing that stands in sharp contrast to Monty’s reserve.
Drugstore employee Susie (Jackie Chung) first meets Monty in the dental-hygiene aisle, then steers him away from a certain cologne he’s unfamiliar with: “You don’t look like an ‘Axe’ guy,” she tells him. “Please don’t be an ‘Axe’ guy.”
The other unlikely Yoda of contemporary manners is Warren (Debargo Sanyal), the dog-hating manager of a pet spa who gives Monty a job. Unsurprisingly, the former prisoner is better with animals than with humans, while Warren seems to prefer video games to both.
Beckim can overdo Monty’s practical cluelessness, but he also weaves such an affectionate web around the characters that you feel for all of them — Monty isn’t the only one here starved for attention.
The cast is particularly good at avoiding clichés. Chung and Sanyal reveal genuine vulnerabilities in adults who behave like children, while Narciso — Bobby Cannavale’s understudy in “The Motherf * * ker With the Hat” — is doggedly endearing as a reticent man balancing a hideous past and an uncertain future.
At 90 minutes, “After.” is a modest miniature, but it lingers.
elisabeth.vincentelli
@nypost.com