Creepiest comedy of the month is Noah Haidle's "Mr. Marmalade," staged just through Saturday by the rapidly developing Thank You, Felix Productions. This is no small distinction in a month that includes "Muckle Man" at City Theatre and "Bug" at barebones.

	Allison Fatla as Lucy and Brian Czarniecki in the title role of "Mr. Marmalade" at Thank You, Felix Productions. Click photo for larger image. 'Mr Marmalade' Where: Gemini Theater, 7501 Penn Ave., Point Breeze. When: 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Ends Saturday. Tickets: $12; $10 for students and senior citizens; 412-243-5201.

What gives "Mr. Marmalade" the edge is that it plays around with disturbing ideas of sexuality, taken to a comically surreal extreme. Lucy (Allison Fatla) is a bright 4-year-old, often left alone by her hapless working single mom (Jill Jeffrey). Lucy has an unsettlingly grown-up imaginative life featuring Mr. Marmalade (Brian Czarniecki), an adult with an array of seductive, addictive and abusive quirks, not to mention a subservient personal assistant (Brad Stephenson)

This is, of course, a projection of Lucy's precocious but necessarily naive view of the adult world, with suggestions of her probable absent father and family life, including her mom's sleep-over boyfriends. Lucy is obsessed with playing house and she knows something about playing doctor, but what, really? With her portrayed by a college-age actress with a softly nubile body and a destabilizing mix of coy suggestion and innocence, prurience is stirred up for enjoyment, speculation or disgust.

But it goes further. Lucy's imaginary play dates ("dates" is right) are of the Escher variety, with perspective continually tilting into new dimensions. Her imaginary characters have minds of their own, veering from make-believe to "real" (whatever real is in this conxet). It's like a multi-layered dream, which includes a meta-commentary on itself. The play also supplies a narrative voice that conveys irony without endorsing it.

Lucy's real world includes a funny, randy baby sitter (Gayle Pazerski), who has a boyfriend (Robert Isenberg). He brings along his young brother (Joe Lyons), who joins in Lucy's imaginary games but adds some of his own, including a talking sunflower and cactus, further multiplying the Escher effect.

All this is dramatized with a captivating but shocking whimsy that sees adult things in childish terms and vice-versa. "Mr. Marmalade" is funny but verges knowingly on exploitative sensationalism. It's comedy, satire and a cry of concern.

Adam Kukick directs a fine cast. Czarniecki's title character and Fatla's Lucy are perfectly balanced between innocence and corruption, and everyone else is unpredictably funny and sometimes sad, especially Pazerski and Stephenson.

Just 75 minutes long, "Mr. Marmalade" suffers from an intrusive intermission (to allow the stage to be cleaned after a wild scene) that leaves Act 2 feeling anti-climactic. It is wittily (or opportunistically?) staged at the Gemini Theater, which usually does children's shows.

Is it just clever and shocking, or does it earn the disquiet it generates? I'd call it a fun-house mirror in whose distortions you disturbingly come to see something of yourself.