Rarely has it been so much fun to be led around by the nose. Last night the reliable Pearl Theatre Company dared to premiere a play that no other professional company in New York has ever touched – William Wycherley’s 1672 Restoration farce, “The Gentleman Dancing-Master.” And to the victor go the spoils: The Pearl has a potential hit on its hands. Throughout two and a half hours of Wycherley’s comic machinations, hearty laughter filled the house, with the pitch occasionally rising to the level of guffaws.

The merriment unfolds at the residence of Mr. James Formal, who, after years of living abroad in Spain, prefers to be called “Don Diego.” His nubile, heavily chaperoned daughter, Hippolita (Marsha Stephanie Blake), is pledged to marry her cousin (Sean Mc-Nall), an English squire who just returned from three months in Paris and goes by the name of Monsieur de Paris.

From his first entrance, Mr. McNall’s over-the-top, pink-wigged fop is a pure delight. He is so perfectly precious about his beribboned pantaloons and his beloved cravat, his elongated courtly bows and his Parisian gait, that he takes on the very nature of young mimics everywhere – the suburban highschooler posing as a rapper, the college freshman who has just discovered Goth. Mr. McNall makes a full meal of his French-accented English and his fey, tee-hee-hee laugh. No matter how oftrepeated, the contrast between M. de Paris and the sensible Brits never fails to score. “I’ll say this for thee,” one of lads in the pub says. “Thou hast made the best use of three months at Paris as ever an English squire did.”

The play really gels midway through the first half, when M. de Paris meets Don Diego (Dan Daily). Don Diego enters in a doublet, affecting an Iberian lisp. At the first glimpse of M. de Paris, his entire face clouds over. “Is that thing my cousin?” he intones. The battle is upon us – French frippery versus Spanish high dudgeon. M. de Paris must give up his French dress or surrender the chance to collect Don Diego’s daughter – and her 1200 pounds a year. The ensuing battle of French bons mots versus Spanish scowls – pantaloons versus Spanish hose – is as hilarious an exchange as comedy has to offer.

Meanwhile, the subplot mechanism kicks in, furnishing poor betrothed Hippolita with a disarming, sturdy Englishman, Mr. Gerrard, played with winning bluntness by Bradford Cover. When Gerrard and Hippolita are discovered together with Hippolita’s maid in her virginal room, the lovers frantically improvise a cover story: Gerrard is a dancing master, sent by her cousin to teach her to dance before the wedding.

Naturally, Gerrard cannot dance, Hippolita cannot make up her mind, and Monsieur de Paris and Don Diego keep generating obstacles for the lovers. Complications ensue, most of them amusing. But near the end of the play, some jarringly crude, antiquated bits of misogynist humor start to weigh things down. The overly long last half grows slack, and one wishes director Gus Kaikonnen, who managed the casting and the difficult delivery (asides interspersed, rapid-fire, with repartee) with such aplomb, might have trimmed the play. But when a production has this many laugh-out-loud moments, audiences are inclined to forgive its flaws.

***

Kids raised on cartoons will feel right at home watching the extremist Golden Dragon Acrobats of He Nan province, China, whose astonishing feats of balance and dexterity are usually reserved for animated characters. There are lovely moments worthy of “Fantasia” (plates spinning on sticks, parasols rolling across the stage, trapeze artists flying on swirling silks), and vaudevillian Donald Duck bits, too (10 acrobats aboard a bicycle, hat-juggling tricks). There is also a strong and disturbing Road Runner element of alarming, life threatening acts that make you avert your eyes – and wonder about what the performers may have gone through to get to this point.

The troupe’s acts fall loosely into two categories of danger: tricks where something can be dropped, and tricks where someone can be dropped. At one point, the troupe’s star, Chao Li, starts piling wooden chairs atop a 6 foot-high platform. When he reaches a suitably terrifying height – say, twenty feet over the stage, he starts performing one-armed handstands, without any kind of safety rope or net. People in the front rows gasp; they’re sitting approximately under him. When he comes back down and rests with both feet on the chair, the audience sighs. The music stops. Mr. Chao says, “Thank you.” Then a question: “One more?”

Kids have always loved watching the Road Runner cartoons, but still, it’s a little chilling to hear them bellow “Yes!” for this live human being. More chairs are lifted up to him on 20 foot poles. He must be 30 feet off the ground. The children are rapt. “Jesus Christ,” the parent next to me breathes. A drum roll, another one-armed handstand – he has literally run out of space. His feet are at the top of the proscenium. Quivering and smiling, he comes back down. The act is over; he has survived.

But the show is marred by the kind of disquieting atmosphere that turns some people off to boxing: Should a man be risking his life for our entertainment? The grand finale, with two furry golden lion costumes and a bunch of clever human pyramids, is more like it. The Golden Dragon Acrobats have plenty of other preposterously good tricks. These days, a circus doesn’t need the tightrope without a net.

“The Gentleman Dancing-Master” until December 18 (80 St. Marks Place, between First and Second Avenues, 212-598-9802).

“Golden Dragon Acrobats” until January 1 (209 W. 42nd Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue, 212-239-6200).