Tap is tops

Have you ever been out to dinner and had the suspicion that the people at the next table were having a much more interesting conversation than you? That sinking feeling might have inspired Centastage's Plays on Tap, a tapas plate of short plays averaging ten minutes long. What unites the pieces - besides the ensemble and Joe Antoun's crisp direction - is the setting: each vignette takes place at a bar or restaurant, adding a bit of voyeuristic thrill to the proceedings.

A pool table becomes a battleground for two sisters more interested in scoring emotional points than sinking balls in Karla Sorenson's Break, and Joe Byers creates a sad portrait of an impoverished little girl in The Junior Banana-Boat-Free-Balloon Special. Most of the pieces, though, aim for the funny bone, from the whimsical - we meet a gay couple who've reached the "yes, dear" stage of their relationship in George Smart's IDWYT, and George Sauer takes us back to the mid 1990s with a what-if scenario about the importance of Crab Legs - to the weird in Breakfast with Harvey, a show-biz sketch that's the weak link in the lineup.

The show is bracketed by two hilarious tales of coffee shop pickups that are worth the price of admission alone. In Patrick Gabridge's clever Lies, Lies, Lies, two strangers are determined to flirt by not flirting, and a personals ad encounter does not go as planned in Monica Raymond's raunchy Novices. It all adds up to a tasty buffet that leaves you wanting more.

Plays on Tap runs Thursday at 7:30 p.m, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. through March 1 at The Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont St., Boston. Tickets $25.

info: 617.933.8600 or www.bostontheatrescene.com