Falling in Love With a Non-Human

Friday, November 17th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) â€” The course of true love never runs smooth, particularly if you are a human being falling for a robotic actoid, a purely mechanical creature who discovers she, too, has feelings and emotions all her own.

Out of such an unlikely relationship, British playwright Alan Ayckbourn has constructed ``Comic Potential,'' a futurist romantic comedy that has its laughs firmly anchored in the classic screwball comedies of the past. It's a blissful evening of theater, although a bit messy, particularly in the long second act when the convoluted plot starts backtracking on itself.

But that's a minor quibble, considering the play, on view at off-Broadway's Manhattan Theatre Club, is sparked by an actoid, er leading lady, who is anything but robotic. Her name is Janie Dee, and she is divine. Dee looks as if she could have stepped out of a comic strip. Wide-eyed and impish, the blond actress has a voice that gurgles with glee and a lithe, dancer's body that can do a pratfall or double-take on cue. She also has heart, a quality especially needed for this curious play to work and not be seen as a gimmicky attempt to write a variation on Shaw's ``Pygmalion.''

``Comic Potential'' occurs sometime beyond the present when actoids have replaced real actors on cut-rate television programs. Into a TV studio comes Adam, the nephew of the studio's millionaire owner. Adam is an eager young student of comedy, who notices an actoid named Jacie Triplethree, played by Dee. Jacie has the effrontery to laugh during a super-somber scene on a TV soap opera. In it, she plays a nurse, and gets the show's director, an alcoholic has-been, all riled up by her inability to stick to the script.

Yet Adam notices her comic potential, and romance eventually blossoms, despite the machinations of the studio's evil production stage manager. It's a sweet-tempered courtship, and Dee works beautifully with the winning Alexander Chaplin, an ardent suitor for her heart. Eventually, the couple runs off together, with Adam (the first man, perhaps?) teaching his mechanical Eve all about life.

Director John Tillinger beautifully orchestrates their moments together. It's the large supporting cast that seems to have been encouraged to mug and bluster their way through the play. The laughs are there, but the performers, who include such veterans as MacIntyre Dixon, Peter Michael Goetz and Kristine Nielsen, shouldn't have to work so hard.

Designer John Lee Beatty has concocted massive turntable settings that include a Buck Rogers-styled television studio, complete with New Age blinking lights. Still, they don't detract from the real star in the firmament. Dee, who won a barrel of awards in London for her performance in ``Comic Potential,'' shines brightest of all.