Soho Playhouse, New York

IF your idea of hilarity is being dragged onstage in front of an audience of strangers to administer the Heimlich maneuver to a comatose pensioner, then have I got a show for you!

Flanagan's Wake, an interactive theater piece that's been running in Chicago for 13 years has finally come to New York. The question is, will New Yorkers come to see Flanagan? The answer, judging by the fairly respectable crowd that had assembled last Thursday night at the Soho Playhouse downtown, is yes (but they might not linger).

Here's what they're getting for their $40 - a free drink, a show and some excruciating public humiliation. For some New Yorkers this will be a tempting prospect. For the rest of us, though, Flanagan's Wake can feel a bit like a particularly vicious gestalt group therapy session gone awry.

The fun starts before you even enter the building. Two cloth caped locals will greet you as you try to ascertain if you've come to the right theater.

"Are you here for the wake?" you'll be asked. Following this you'll be asked for your name - and don't lie, it will it will come back to haunt you.

Next you'll have a nametag attached to your person. If you're not Irish and your name is Cassandra, say, they'll call you Mary Cassandra. If your name is Abdullah, say, you'll be called Patrick Abdullah. You get the idea.

As you try to make your way to your seat unmolested a group of outrageously accented actors will gently - and not so gently - probe and quiz you looking for an exploitable weakness, all the better to disgrace you when the show begins.

Set in the fictional town of Grapplin, in the very real Co. Sligo, where the locals have come to the pub to eulogize Flanagan, the set-up is as simple as it is effective. Of course it wouldn't be a real Irish wake without a disputed will and a glowering country priest, and those plot points that are introduced early on, too.

Much of the fun of the show - and Flanagan's Wake is often very funny - is in watching the cast simultaneously promulgate and skewer Irish stereotypes. These are talented performers it turns out, skilled at improvisational dialogue and trusting each other to carry a scene.

They're also exactly the kind of performers that give the profession both its bad name and its undeniable attraction. This crowd of chancers looks capable of anything, and much of the evening's humor comes from that awareness.

One genuinely hilarious episode involved harvesting nouns from the reluctant audience. "A noun," one actor helpfully reminded us, "is the name of a person, place or thing."

He proceeds to tell the sad story of Flanagan's demise using words he picked up at random from the audience. "Ah death, death comes to us all, death is like a ---?" At this point he turned to me.

Everyone in the place is staring at us. Again he asks me, "Death is like a ---?"

"Sandcastle," I reply, madly, not knowing what I'm saying. It's an odd reply, absurd and yet curiously ambiguous. Momentarily, the show comes to a screeching halt. But these are nimble performers, and they recover so quickly you'd hardly notice.

Others had it worse than me, believe it or not. One woman found herself grappling with a biting octogenarian wielding a blackthorn stick (I thought myself lucky to have avoided that entanglement). Others were invited onstage to perform awkward jigs with their partners.

Then a red headed, well spoken young man from Connecticut was invited up on stage to sing "Danny Boy" from a music sheet. He wasn't half bad, and his posh Ivy League pronunciation brought the house down: "Eau come you bachk, when sum-mah's in the med-dowh."

In the end I was more impressed by the actors' abilities than by their obviously slight material. Watching this piece you hope that after they've had their fun they'll tackle a play by J.M. Synge, say.

There's a lot of gentle - and quite a few raunchy - laughs to be had at Flanagan's Wake. Just be aware that most of the best ones will be had at your own expense.

(Flanagan's Wake is now playing at the Soho Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street, New York. For tickets call 212-691-1555.)