The second week of the 16th annual New Works Festival is notable mainly for brevity -- three one-act plays totalling less than an hour, although with intro and intermissions (schmoozing is part of the fun at the theater), the evening comes in at about 90 minutes, leaving plenty of time to go on to something else.

At New Works, the intro is also part of the fun. Ricky Walters (stubby, perky, wry) is the master of turning info into stand-up, and Lynn Woshner (tattooed, perky, irreverent) has become his peer.

'Death on Flagler'

The longest and strongest of the three and perhaps the only one that's really a play is "Death on Flagler" by Lucas Leyva of Miami, Fla., an undergrad at Fordham University.

		Pittsburgh New Works Festival Where: CAPA High School Auditorium, Ninth Street and Fort Duquesne Boulevard, Downtown. When: 5 and 8 p.m. today; 4 and 7 p.m. tomorrow. Tickets: $7; 412-881-6888.

Galvin is setting up a hot dog stand outside a downtown office while his friend Frances rants about his girlfriend in a foul-mouthed, Mamet-like spume. Something else is bothering Galvin, perhaps jealousy, and the surreal appearance of a buffalo triggers an explosion.

By the way, you shouldn't give away too much with your title. Suffice it to say that the language may feel like Mamet, but the play unspools like Albee's "The Zoo Story," leaving similar questions about motive and meaning.

The tall Shawn Smith plays Frances with comic presence and a tumult laced with bewilderment. It's a treat to watch him turn a cell phone into an object of emotion. Todd Betker is the hapless Galvin, more aware but less explicable. Lucas McNelly directs briskly for Cup-A-Jo Productions.

'Let Down'

Author Kristen DeWulf of Warrenton, Va., has had a lot of experience. This, directed by Jill Jeffrey for The Summer Company, is just a 15-minute scene, perhaps left over from something else. In it, young parents Rob and Tina try to take a brief restaurant break from their crying baby.

Rob has an image of a perfect, cuddly family feeding him supper when he returns from work; Tina faces a different reality. They squabble and make up and squabble. It's hard to know how serious it is, the material is so slight, but Marcus Kelly and Katie Jensen fill it out with some appealingly natural moments.

'Bridge'

By Paula Martinac of Pittsburgh, "Bridge" also gives away a lot in its title, but no more than we are supposed to understand right off, as we see Janet poised high above on a catwalk.

Her cell phone rings. It's magazine telemarketer Lawrence, seated in comfort. It turns out she's on the verge of jumping, although I can't say I ever felt it was a real possibility. The 16-minute play ends with a double ambiguity: What does Janet do, and why don't the police Lawrence calls get involved?

Carter Redwood directs for Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater, but he needs to crack the whip a bit -- Jodie Bross and Jeremy Wingle aren't always sure of their lines. Or maybe the difficulty is in doing dialogue over the phone, not being able to look at each other, although that's surely the chief technical challenge the playlet poses. They never convinced me they were connected through that telephone, as they must come to seem to be.