NEEDLE IN THE HAY Gerber tries to inject some humor into Delianides.

One of the problems with the surging infantilization of theater is that it makes it difficult for audiences to discern when infantilization is actually appropriate. Caffrey’s frenetic new comedy is a case in point. His fable concerns a man whose overbearing shrew of a wife is so unhappy with her appearance he’s hired a medical student to perform questionable cosmetic surgeries on her while he hunts in the woods for a mythic creature, the Squonk, which is rumored to grant eternal beauty.

As a new storefront voice, Caffrey writes at least a tier above the usual fringe wash of pub-set angst-rant plays and superhero riffs; the unbridled screwball arguments he’s written for the malcontent wife and the neurotic doctor are as funny and sophisticated as anything on Chicago boards at the moment. But the arrival of the play’s fantasy element, the grotesque woodland animal with the mopey, squeaky voice, makes the evening’s crucial second act feel suspiciously like children’s theater.

Though produced on a budget-crisis budget, this sprightly, spastic staging by new troupe Tympanic has eccentric comic performances delivered with confidence and nuance (wet-noodle Gerber is the standout as the can’t-win physician); it’s a promising outing for a company less than a year old. But you can’t quite shake the feeling that the cultural antecedent for the lesson taught is more Sesame Street than—pardon the mention—Main Street, to which this play would appeal, were it slightly more mature. But keep an eye on this green company; it appears to have a point of view.