BY EVAN HENERSON >THEATER CRITIC

Crazy mother; tightly wound, neurotic son; screw-up of a younger sister; blind date from Planet Oddball. Can we get a collective "oy vey"? Peopled with the type of stock comic characters from whom you should flee screaming, "An Act of Love" is a recipe for a fluff-ball nightmare.

Surprise! David Landsberg's family comedy, in its world premiere at the Falcon Theatre, is a pleasant little bauble containing a couple of quite witty performances and more smarts than a vehicle of this caliber rightly deserves.

How well-crafted is Landsberg's play and Casey Stangl's production? Tight enough that, had it ended at its intermission, 45 minutes in, the tale would have felt complete. Yet, bringing his dysfunctional Sandusky clan back for more wrangling, Landsberg (a longtime writer for "The Cosby Show" and "The John Larroquette Show") doesn't damage the marvel he pulled off in the first act. In this kind of comedy, that's saying something.

Besides, any extra time we get with Susan Sullivan, playing a delusional, over-the-top mother with actorly aspirations (or perhaps it's the other way around), is money well spent. Sullivan's Mommie Dearest meets Auntie Mame is bitchily delicious.

It's not entirely mom's tale. The play rightfully belongs to Peter Sandusky (played by Timothy Hornor), a 30-year-old insurance agent with a nice house (designed with California chic by Keith Mitchell), a broken marriage and a former addict of a kid sister named Julia (Hedy Burress) looking to get her life back in order.

Julia wants to crash at Peter's house for a week while she figures things out. Peter reluctantly agrees, as long as Julia brings in her bags - and baggage - the morning after his first post-divorce date. That would be a blind date with a co-worker's cousin, Maureen (Beth Kennedy), who arrives wearing a black burka because, although not Muslim, she wants Peter to get to know her before he can look at her.

Now, there is no shortage of low-comedy laughs at the expense of someone who comes to a date dressed, as one character describes it, "like the Ghost of Christmas Past." Kennedy, the Troubadour Theatre Company veteran who could milk humor out of a plane crash, nails them all - negotiating a wine glass, most obviously.

Possessed of a sarcastic streak and a controlling nature, Peter, truth be told, is a bit of a jackass, although given his family, you can hardly blame the man. Once his mom (Sullivan) drops in to berate both himself and Julia, Peter hits on an idea: Why not employ her to act the part of the concerned and loving mother she has never been in real life? Turns out Mom is a better performer than her kids anticipated.

Landsberg goes for the humor - caustic and quirky - more than for anything remotely gooey. This plays to Sullivan's strength: The actress' every look, gesture and line is shot through with potential irony. Hornor smoothly taps Peter's humor and his nastiness. We get why the man's a charismatic mess.

A couple more extraneous characters arrive in the second act, in large part, I suspect, to give Sullivan's mother even more of an audience. What can I say? She deserves it. Ditto, "An Act of Love."

Evan Henerson (818) 713-3651

evan.henerson@dailynews.com

review>

AN ACT OF LOVE

>Where: Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank.

>When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday; through April 27.

>Tickets: $25 to $37.50. (818) 955-8101, www.falcontheatre.com.

>In a nutshell: Better-than-average family and blind-date comedy.