It's a clever and appealing idea to spin a contemporary play off an American classic such as Thornton Wilder's "Our Town." That it's iconic guarantees you potent parallels; that it's well-known saves time with your audience; and that it has such an open, accessible structure provides many ways to connect it to your own creation.

Adam Kukic Joe Stitman and Diana Ifft play the mayor and town clerk of Grover's Corners, N.H., in "Their Town." Click photo for larger image. Pittsburgh Pride Theater Festival Where: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, 542 Penn Ave., Mezzanine Level, Downtown. When: Through Sun. "Their Town": today and Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. One-acts: Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 4 p.m., Sun. 7 p.m. Tickets: $10 with reservation; $15 at door; pass for both programs $15; 412-288-0358. Related story Stage Reviews: Festival's one-act plays interesting but uneven

But in writing "Their Town," a comedy dealing with the current debate over same-sex marriage, playwright Paula Martinac has found another useful connection: Wilder himself, now known to have been a closeted gay man, becomes a character and seems quite at home.

Why not? After all, he's the "founder" of Grover's Corners, N.H., the quintessential small New England town that he invented as his play's setting and Martinac borrows to be hers. As founder, he is naturally discovered as a statue in the park (right by "the fruit garden," the bushy area where gays meet). Come to life, this all-gray Wilder steps down from his pedestal to serve briefly as narrator, like the Stage Manager in his own play -- he even echoes a few phrases, as of course an author might.

But mainly, Wilder serves as the confidante of the play's central character, Margaret, the new Town Clerk. She has refused to certify the gay marriage the new mayor wants to use to put the town (and himself) on the map, so she finds herself harassed from both sides, and at the end of Act 1 she discovers that her beautiful teenage daughter is gay. A confidante is the least she needs.

The Wilder character is completely successful, with a refreshingly wry perspective, as when he admits the limits of his own experience: "If you were talking to a statue of Tennessee Williams, you'd get an entirely different story." I wish Martinac could use him even more.

Her contemporary people are less exciting: that frantic clerk, the ambitious mayor, his gay lawyer brother, the opposing town council president (who's not exactly a homophobe; in Martinac's town, everybody is so nice) and the two town women who just want to get married so they can share benefits like other couples.

The larger issue of gay marriage gets snarled up in statewide politics and is soon enough supplanted by Margaret's struggle with her daughter's sexuality. (The daughter is fine: That's a recurring theme in gay pride festival plays, that the kids are well-adjusted; it's the parents who need help.)

The way the family story goes is predictable, this being a comedy. On the political issue, Martinac has some surprises: The two women get cold feet, but the mayor is handed another gay marriage to conduct. And Wilder finally disappears into those bushes.

It's an entertaining play that could be more so if the execution were better. Again and again director Adam Kukic lets the many short scenes end flat or just trail off, followed by a blackout in which you feel the energy melt away. Martinac occasionally provides a solution by overlapping two scenes. But there must be other ways to punctuate them and maintain momentum.

The acting is sometimes irresolute. Todd Betker (Williams), Diana Ifft (Margaret), Paige Spara (her daughter) and Jaime Slavinsky and Scott van de Mark (several roles each) are generally successful, although Ifft needs to vary her anxiety. Playwright or director should better indicate when an actor is playing a new role, as in van de Mark's appearance as leader of a gay relatives' support group or when his character has changed, as when van de Mark starts giving gay-themed town tours -- is this his reformed town council president?

With some re-writing and sharper direction, "Their Town" has a future.