By Joe Brown

Thu, Nov 13, 2008 (2 a.m.)

There comes a time in nearly everyone’s life when we ask “How did I turn out like this?” And also “Who do I blame?” Sadly, by the time most of us think to query the responsible parties, it’s often too late.

Playwright Christopher Durang works out those questions and more in his painfully funny memory play “The Marriage of Bette and Boo.” The 1985 tragicomedy recently enjoyed a successful revival off-Broadway, and the current staging by Nevada Conservatory Theatre at UNLV is so good you won’t feel you missed out.

Matt (who was played by Durang himself in the original production) is an alienated young man trying to make sense of his family, witnessing the primal scenes: marriage, birth, death, Thanksgiving.

In 33 skit-like scenes, Matt observes the naive union of his parents — non sequitur-prone Bette Brennan and callow Boo Hudlocke — and their childlike and cruel respective families.

A perpetual student (he’s always in the middle of writing a term paper on Thomas Hardy), Matt distances himself from the pathos with black humor and tries in vain to apply an academic approach to his memories, hoping to bring meaning and order to this ball of confusion.

“I see all of you do the same things over and over and you can’t change,” he says. “And my fear is that I do the same thing and I can’t see it.”

This dysfunctional family circus is presided over by a doctor who matter-of-factly delivers Bette’s parade of stillborn babies by unceremoniously dropping them on the floor (one of the play’s running gags), and a fatuous priest, who dispenses empty platitudes in answer to “insoluble questions.”

“Bette and Boo” is another of Durang’s biting plays, including “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All To You,” written in response to Catholic dogma and its disastrous results. “I don’t think God punishes people for specific things,” says his onstage stand-in Matt. “I think he punishes them in general, for no reason.”

And yes, though this play unspools a lifetime marked by alcoholism, self-flagellating guilt and inevitable loss, it is very funny, though the conclusion delivers an emotional sucker punch.

At the Black Box Theatre, “Bette and Boo” is staged on a Mondrian playground, designed by Heather M. Caliguire, with oversized blocks in primary colors standing in as furniture.

Durang’s script calls for a similarly stylized approach and director Rayme Cornell expertly maintains the esssential dissonance between the ghastliness of the goings-on and the giddiness of the presentation. Cornell is aided by a uniformly strong ensemble. Robert Bartusch is particularly appealing as Matt, and Stephan Maeder earns all his laughs as both Father Donnally and the doctor.

On a side note, I was amused by a pre-show request to the audience to “please do not text during the show.” Sign of the times.