STAGE REVIEWS : 3 Couples Find Happiness at Costa Mesa Playhouse : ‘Romance, Relationships & Reality’ is a pleasing collection of one-acts based on works of Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker and Jean Lenox Toddie.

The vagaries of love are on the agenda at the Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse in a quaint, mostly pleasing collection of one-act comedies, lumped together under the title “Romance, Relationships & Reality.”

Easily the best of the trio is David Birney’s adaptation of Mark Twain’s “The Diaries of Adam and Eve.” Marla Gam-Hudson, who directed all three plays, knows she’s dealing with uncommonly witty language in this jaunty Twain excursion, and she emphasizes it at every turn.

We’re introduced to Eve (a charmingly willful performance by Jacqueline Burnett) who happily tells the audience that she’s “an experiment,” something created to explore, learn and, well, just be wonderful. She’s an adventurer with abandon, looking here and there, offering her opinions on this and that, wearing her emotions on her sleeve.

Adam (played with amusing stoicism by Christopher Lance Walker) is an unbending pragmatist, also opinionated but exasperatingly macho--at least when Eve’s around. At least when he first meets her. Adam warms up soon enough, eventually giving in to Eve’s beauty and whimsy.

Along the way, Twain toys with all sorts of things from religion to sexual stereotypes, and Gam-Hudson and her actors deliver brightly. There’s cleverness in the staging as well, from the economical but colorful set to the costumes by Dorene Robertson, who decided to dress Adam and Eve in the style of Twain’s day.

The program begins with Dorothy Parker’s “Here We Are.” It was the primary disappointment of the evening, mainly because the playlet is not vintage Parker. This small-frame scene of young newlyweds (the eager Fourston Ireland and Denise DiRisio) embarking on their honeymoon lacks the honeyed bite and timelessness of the writer’s best work.

Gam-Hudson didn’t help matters by turning the couple’s anxieties (most of which center on that upcoming first bout with lovemaking) into comic crises. And the denouement is played too cutely; instead of such a blissful ending, Parker, a frequent critic of such institutions as marriage, probably would have been more comfortable had the couple’s doubts been left lingering.

The last one-act is Jean Lenox Toddie’s “A Little Something for the Ducks,” a somewhat corny but sweetly optimistic piece that brings together a pair of feisty elderly widowers, played with sauciness by Joe Abrams and Judy O’Dea.

First they quarrel, then talk, then quarrel some more, then they talk some more. Pretty soon they’ve opened up and are taking little steps toward falling in love.

‘Romance, Relationships & Reality’

A Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse production of one-acts based on the works of Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker and Jean Lenox Toddie. Directed by Marla Gam-Hudson. With Fourston Ireland, Denise DiRisio, Christopher Lance Walker, Jacqueline Burnett, Joe Abrams and Judy O’Dea. Lighting by Loni Alcarez. Costumes by Dorene Robertson. Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through Sept. 29 at 661 Hamilton St., Costa Mesa. Tickets: $8.50 and $9.50. (714) 650-5269.