“‘Will and Grace’ — I loved that show; it was adorable. It was like if Pottery Barn sold people.”

“What is that aroma, kitty litter and patchouli? Is that some new Glade spray, Country Fresh Lesbian? Jodie Foster No. 5?”

“Can gay people change? Of course — for dinner.”

Roll over, Oscar Wilde, and tell Quentin Crisp the news. With “The New Century,” Paul Rudnick has once again swollen the master list of memorable bons mots by a few dozen. The trick for anyone reviewing Mr. Rudnick’s work is avoiding the urge to merely spool out a list of quips — and, as Wilde understood, the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. (Ergo, the first three lines of this review.)

The trick for Mr. Rudnick, meanwhile, is avoiding the temptation to substitute this aphoristic onslaught for adroit plotting or characterization, which is why he has relied so frequently on the quick-hit pleasures of one-act plays. He overplays his hand this time out, larding his trio of virtual monologues — Rudnick veteran Peter Bartlett is joined by the heaven-sent tandem of Linda Lavin and Jayne Houdyshell — with an unnecessary fourth piece that contrives to introduce these characters to one another. But until that ill-advised conflation, Mr. Rudnick uses a new angle (two very different mothers) alongside a rather old one (a swishy older man) to fortify his latest assault on the clichés of modern-day gay life.

First up is Helene Nadler (Ms. Lavin), the vehemently imperturbable Massapequa matron at the center of “Pride and Joy.” Helene has three kids, each one gayer than the next, and she has decided to share with a support group how this has made her the most tolerant mother of all time. Ms. Lavin captures with consummate timing just how much energy she has devoted to converting her mortification into a sort of defiant pride, and director Nicholas Martin allows her to use huge pauses and abrasive inflections that would curdle in lesser hands. Pride comes just as easily to Barbara Ellen Diggs (Ms. Houdyshell), the effervescent narrator of “Crafty,” although Mr. Rudnick has a tough time at first deciding how much he shares her confidence. Barbara Ellen, you see, is overweight. And she’s from Decatur, Ill. And she specializes in handicrafts such as scrapbooks and toilet paper caddies.

In 1998’s “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told,” one of Mr. Rudnick’s characters dismissed angels as “Prozac for poor people.” Mr. Rudnick’s knack for condescension has hardly dimmed, and Barbara Ellen’s bubbly banalities are held up for particular abuse. But Mr. Rudnick tries to have it both ways: When Barbara Ellen visits her gay son in New York, she bristles at being called “a hoot” by his friends. “That means I wear polyester without irony,” she says, betraying just the slightest pain at being stereotyped. “Crafty” has an agreeably tender core, a reminder that Mr. Rudnick is capable of tempering his quip-a-minute style with real emotions. But it stays just barely on the right side of contempt, thanks primarily to Ms. Houdyshell’s alternately uproarious and bruised portrayal.

Barbara Ellen’s trip to Manhattan also prompts some musings on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, risky territory even for the man who found laughs in AIDS (“Jeffrey”) and the gay-bashing death of Matthew Shepard (“On the Fence,” a one-act play included in Mr. Rudnick’s “Rude Entertainment”). After one fairly harmless riff about Barbara Ellen’s confusion that “muslin” (as opposed to Muslim) terrorists may have been involved, Mr. Rudnick wisely decides to shift his energies toward Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “Gates” installation, which our heroine views (not incorrectly) as a giant crafts project.

Both “Pride and Joy” and “Crafty” have been staged before as part of benefits and limited engagements, but they are brand-spanking new compared to the middle play, “Mr. Charles, Currently of Palm Beach,” which has featured Mr. Bartlett to riotous effect in at least two other New York productions. Mr. Charles, whose irredeemably effeminate ways got him barred from New York (“There was a vote”), has been reduced to hosting a public-access television show called “Too Gay.” Here he fields questions, shows off his bare-chested “ward” Shane (Mike Doyle), and defends the efficacy of ascots, “nellie breaks,” and other limp-wristed affectations of an earlier time.

Perhaps it’s the proximity to more nuanced works, but while much of “Mr. Charles” remains untouched (Mr. Bartlett’s 60-second encapsulation of gay theater was and is a catty highlight), this iteration shows its age even more than its namesake. A new John McCain gag goes nowhere, Mr. Doyle overplays Shane’s vapidity, and a new twist on Mr. Charles’s life-changing powers falls flat. Mr. Rudnick has had ample success with the Mr. Charleses of the world; it may be time to conjure up a new one and let the original model enjoy his Palm Beach exile. Last is the only truly new piece, a shopworn excuse to put Barbara Ellen, a newly (and rather puzzlingly) embittered Helene, and Mr. Charles in the same room together. Relocating everyone to the maternity ward of a New York hospital requires some unusually artless finagling on Mr. Rudnick’s part. And once they’re there, nothing really happens to nudge either of the women toward any appreciable level of indignation or emotion or much of anything, leaving Mr. Charles and the tedious Shane to supply virtually all of the laughs. Helene and Barbara Ellen, despite the tinge of condescension in the latter case, are two of Mr. Rudnick’s more tantalizing creations in recent years. They deserve better than to be reduced to, pardon the expression, straight women.

Until June 8 (150 W. 65th St., 212-239-6200).