New York is in the middle of a rush of Polish theater – play your cards right and you can make a little festival out of it. Hip young director Grzegorz Jarzyna’s “Risk Everything,” at St. Ann’s this week, comes on the heels of Krzystof Warlikowski’s unsettling “The Dybbuk” at BAM, cutting-edge Polish theater makes a long-awaited New York splashdown. And now Philadelphia’s Pig Iron company is getting into the act.

Adapting and performing a Witold Gombrowicz novel, its poker-faced “Hell Meets Henry Halfway” whets our appetite for all things Polish. Pig Iron has been working in the movement-theater tradition for years – its most recent New York offering, “Shut Eye” straddled definitions at the Dance Theater Workshop. The company is used to tying its actors in knots, but this time Gombrowicz gets them to do it with words.

Sounding like Poe on a raging three-day-bender, “Hell Meets Henry Halfway” marries good old Polish ennui to high gothic camp. The results are so funny you shouldn’t be chewing gum while you watch.

In a spooky old castle, square, responsible Henry (Dito van Reigersberg) takes care of a doddering Prince (Emmanuelle Delpech-Ramey). But Henry hasn’t got a lot of patience left. His fiancee, Maya, is a disaffected brat, her younger brother Jon chatters endlessly, and the new tennis coach Walchak can’t be bothered to dress for dinner. Boredom results in a constant, low-level sadism among the mansion mates – even the house ghost likes to pelt poor Henry with tennis balls. When a mysterious doctor materializes out of the night, the balance of power begins to tip out of Henry’s control.

The bitter banter ping-pongs brilliantly around on the Astroturf set. Designer Matt Saunders provides a multi-functional wardrobe in the back that alternately becomes a dining table, trysting cupboard, and railway carriage. Adriano Shaplin’s text should win awards – I hereby give it the “Best Use of a Dead Squirrel” medal. And director Dan Rothenberg collaborates beautifully with his actors, steering them around long-winded rants about the unfairness of life (“I mean, is God jealous of me?” whines Walchak) and into madcap situations with ease.

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Speaking of festivals, the city’s theaters are throwing a John Patrick Shanley extravaganza over the next few weeks. With his new play “Doubt” opening later this month and the revival of “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea” playing at Second Stage, we’re just some fried dough away from a JPS street fair.

Downtown, the Labyrinth Theater Company offers up the amuse bouche. “Sailor’s Song,” a charming and lighthearted examination of death and the agony of choice, lets Mr. Shanley and the Labyrinth gang dip their toes into frothy dance-theater waters. Once the mood turns serious, those waters get a little hot for the show – it can be a bad idea to be too solemn about interpretive movement. But at its best, while the mood is still light, Shanley gets in some good kicks at life while making them seem like dance steps.

In a little seaside town, Rich (Danny Mastrogiorgio) has come to help his uncle John (Stephen Payne) watch his wife die. Escaping John’s whiskey and gravelly existentialisms for a quick drink, Rich meets two strange sisters, one psychic, the other bizarrely affectionate. Faster than you can strike up a waltz, Rich and the girls are rowing on the lake, dancing under the stars, and exchanging romantic ideals.

Will Rich fall for normal Lucy? Or let her drift through his fingers while he keeps zany Joan on a string? Like many a Shanley character before him, Rich rages with potential and an inability to choose. The wrecked Uncle John, lifelong sailor and scapegrace, seems a cautionary figure – but at least he has made his choices and lived with them.

Director Chris McGarry gives Mr. Mastrogiorgio a perfect showcase here. You might not understand why Lucy brazenly picks him up, but you can see why she would be desperate to keep him. His regular-guy bafflement at Joan’s psychic episodes and his ability to turn pirouettes with a parasol perfectly balances the show’s sugary moments. Mr. Payne gives a Bukowski-rough performance, with enough vinegar to cut the saccharine out of his scenes. In fact, everyone does a fine job. But your tolerance for sentiment has to be high.

The show’s subtitle, “A Watercolor,” should give ample warning. Camille Connolly’s set, driftwood gray and shimmering with stars, finishes the job. The only thing interrupting the complete indulgence of our sappiest side is the strange choice of waltzes – some of Strauss’s more martial numbers. I have to ask, do you hear snare drums when you fall in love?