"Misha's Party," one of a trio of new shows at the Chekhov Art Theater, is unusual for a host of reasons.


Most uncommon is that it is the joint project of two playwrights who write in different languages -- the Russian Alexander Gelman and the American Richard Nelson. Gelman's participation is unexpected for another reason too: A prolific author of plays on industrial and production themes in the 1970s, he became a symbol of the perestroika cultural crisis when he completely abandoned the theater after 1984.


That crisis saw the number of contemporary plays produced in Russian theaters plummet, making this production of "Misha's Party" a notable rarity. Which brings us to the final surprise: When contemporary plays are this fun and this funny, you can't help but wonder why everybody isn't doing them. This observer hasn't heard such frequent bursts of laughter in a Moscow theater in ages.


"Misha's Party," conceived by Gelman and Nelson together before each wrote his own play, is a brisk, well-made theatrical sitcom. The situations are far-fetched without being annoying, and the characters, though bordering on caricatures, are well-defined, sympathetic individuals.


Misha has turned 60. To celebrate, he has invited to the Ukraina Hotel his young fianc?e Lida, plus his two former wives Katya and Natasha with their husbands Fyodor and Valery. Also there is Mary, an American actress whose granddaughter Susie has disappeared across the river at the White House.


That normally might not have concerned the crusty Mary, but this is no normal situation: The date is August 20, 1991, Gorbachev is locked up in Foros, Yeltsin is holed up in the White House and everybody -- most of all the democrat-slandering Fyodor -- is waiting for a KGB attack at any minute.


But there really isn't much politics here, except as comic fodder, and that was the authors' well-considered intent. This story reminds us that every person's life -- history and other people notwithstanding -- is that person's own greatest gift. Misha (the splendid, sad-eyed Stanislav Lyubshin) sums it up perfectly: "My life is short. These coups will take place over and over again, but I will only be 60 years old once."


And yet Misha has a whopper of a surprise up his sleeve. After unveiling the plans of a new house he built on the Volga River, he drops the bomb: He wants all his wives -- past and future -- to live there with him.


Oleg Yefremov directed this sometimes sentimental and always comic stew from a proper distance, letting the excellent cast show off their abundant talents at will, painting the wacky goings-on in broad swaths and bright, primary colors. Tatyana Lavrova's Katya is the pouty, still-hurt first wife; Anastasiya Voznesenskaya's Natasha is the adventurous homewrecker-turned-second wife; Yevgeniya Dobrovolskaya's Lida is the sensitive, empathizing young woman who fell for the charming elderly ladies' man.


Alexei Zharkov creates a sympathetic toughy as Katya's thick-headed husband, while Andrei Myagkov is a spectacular bundle of nerves as Natasha's would-be screenwriter husband. Now an ?migr? living in the U.S., when he learns that Mary's son is a big Hollywood producer, he nearly comes apart at the seams between chasing after Mary and trying to retrieve his wife from Misha.


The corn of this comedy is tempered by Nelli Seleznyova's Masha, the ignored daughter whom Misha must learn to love, and Olga Barnet's guileless Mary, who tries saving Misha's party from ruin when things get out of hand, while instead inadvertently ruining everything.


Boris Messerer's set turns a slice of the Ukraine Hotel into a three-ring circus, dividing the stage equally into Misha's and Mary's suites, with the corridor in-between them.


"Misha's Party" is neither especially deep nor challenging. Its considerable strength is that in drawing a picture of contemporary Russian life, it tells simple truths clearly and with a wonderful sense of humor.





"Misha's Party" (Mishin yubilei) plays Monday at 7 P.M. at the Chekhov Art Theater, 3 Kamergersky Pereulok. Tel. 229-8760. Running Time: 2 hours, 55 minutes.