Alexa Vere de Vere (Francine Segal) dazzles then cons Evan Wyler (Peter Callahan) in As Bees in Honey Drown at le chat noir.

"A savvy and breezy new comedy" (Newsday). "A delicious souffle of a satire" (The New York Times). It won the Outer Critics Circle, an Obie Award, the John Gasner Playwright Award and a nomination for best play by the Drama Desk. It was a big hit in New York and has been done in regional reps all over the country.

  I just want to get all that out up front, so that a discerning reader can look with reasonable skepticism on what follows – namely, my own feelings about As Bees in Honey Drown, currently on the boards at le chat noir.

  Watching the play, I suffered an intense attack of what I call the Other Planet Syndrome. This is a pathological mental state (perhaps traceable to my Jewish ancestry or some deep hidden Freudian flaw in my childhood development) in which I experience the world as though I had been suddenly transported onto this planet from some alien world. Everyone around me seems in agreement about a self-evident fact or occurrence about which my perceptions are so utterly at variance it’s hard to know how to enter into a discussion. If you suffer from the same problem, drop me a line and we’ll start a support group. Together, maybe we can beat this thing.

  Meanwhile, I am left to struggle with my painful lack of appreciation for the aforementioned "savvy, breezy, delicious souffle."

  The play begins with a photo session. Evan Wyler (Peter Callahan), the bright young novelist of the moment, is being photographed for a magazine. Wyler had in mind something dignified, like leaning on a book by Proust. But no, not in this crass age of commercialism. The photographer wants bare torso. "Now," he yells, as the punchline of the scene, "F–k the camera!" Get it? He’s a crude hack and that’s how he talks to young novelists.

  Well, next thing you know, Wyler is approached by one Alexa Vere de Vere (Francine Segal), a glamorous life force in a short black sheath who smokes through a long cigarette holder and often rubs her teeth with her finger to remove traces of lipstick. She is given to Miss Piggyisms of the oddest sort, like wondering what’s been going on in her petite tete. So traveled, so continental, you see. No wonder the young novelist is completely smitten. She also peppers her speech with little gems like, "a cunning little Lagerfeld traveling suit." All in all, a fascinating creature.

  Alexa wants Wyler to write a movie based on her life. She is going to hire the impecunious young novelist at astronomical rates. But for some reason, she must pay only in cash. And so she hands him a thousand dollars, right there across the table of a restaurant. (On the night I saw the show, this was a single bill). Wyler must put the tab on his credit card. And while Alexa whirls him around the town, buying suits for him, taking him to nightclubs and generally introducing him to la dolce vita (all on his plastic), he runs up a huge debt.

  Eventually, he learns that Alexa is not the sophisticated wealthy record producer she pretends to be, but a flim-flam artist. There are a vast number of celebrities and would-be celebrities that were fleeced in just the same way.

  While seeking revenge, Wyler (who is gay) meets Alexa’s former lover, a gay painter. Satire makes way for a tender interlude as the two men struggle toward a meaningful love relationship. We learn that Alexa discovered her con game, one magical day, when she managed to round up the who’s-who of the New York art scene with a few phone calls, once she disguised her low-class Pennsylvania accent (oddly Bronx sounding) with pretentious pseudo-European gobble-de-gook that the formerly dismissive New Yorkers ate up like … well, like souffle.

  Enough. I can feel my chest tightening with Other Planet Syndrome. Normal earthlings are advised to go see the show. Undoubtedly they will enjoy it.

  Segal plays Alexa Vere de Vere with aplomb and brio. Callahan is a guileless and appealing Wyler. Kristopher Kael is disarmingly natural as Alexa’s first love. Leah Loftin and Mary Lee Gibbons give vivid turns as a variety of types. While Bob Edes – a joyful and adept chameleon – hits gold in three utterly different roles.

  The set by David Raphael is an attractive skyscape with, however, a plethora of finicky little locales. David Hoover directed this famous and successful satire of fame and success in the Big Apple. .