New York is the lucky beneficiary of a renaissance of the work of playwright David Mamet. In addition to last season’s uptown revivals of Speed-the-Plow and American Buffalo, no fewer than three major productions of his work are opening within a few weeks of each other this fall. On Broadway we have a currently-in-previews revival of his 1992 Off-Broadway success Oleanna, and the world premiere of Race opens uptown in December. But first, Mamet returns to his Off-Broadway roots at the troupe he co-founded, The Atlantic Theater Company, with a double-bill of one act plays.

Directed by Neil Pepe, Atlantic Theater’s Artistic Director and a consummate stager of the playwright’s work, Two Unrelated Plays by David Mamet: Keep Your Pantheon and School is truly truth in advertising. One work finds Mamet in his classic mode: quick, rat-a-tat, circuitous dialogue between two male characters, while the other is a rollicking Roman farce as imagined by one of America’s pre-eminent playwrights.

School is the curtain-raiser, and concerns two elementary school administrators as they debate the prudence of their young pupils creating pro-recycling posters given that the displays will eventually be sent to the landfill – unless the custodial staff has time to recycle them. Mamet’s trademark liberal use of expletives is nowhere to be found (one must think of the schoolchildren, after all), but the very funny 10-minute work does touch on issues of adolescent sexual provocation and the transmission of information. Playing characters identified simply as “A” and “B,” Rod McLachlan and John Pankow are pros at delivering Mamet’s barbed staccato dialogue.

For the evening’s main course, Mamet’s characters trade their oxford shirts, loafers and machine-gun delivery for togas, sandals, and a farcical plot. Evoking the giddy spirit of Roman comedic playwrights like Aristophanes and Plautus (whose work was also the inspiration for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum), Keep Your Pantheon features a faltering two-bit theatrical troupe as their efforts to raise rent money lead them to performing a politically incendiary comedy for the wrong audience, and possibly even to death. Brian Murray is a bug-eyed, hammy delight as the company’s leader, delusional in both theatrical ambition and in attaining the sexual favors of his pretty-but-pretty-dumb protégé, played with blank-eyed innocence by Michael Cassidy, while McLachlan does double duty by also performing in Pantheon as Murray’s cynical right-hand man. The large ensemble cast of centurions, landlords, and town criers/ad men, and wizened old men who sell phallic charms milks Pantheon’s comedy for all it’s worth. And the goofy design of Takeshi Kata’s scenery and especially Ilona Somogyi’s costumes just add to the evening’s 80 minutes of pure fun.

TWO UNRELATED PLAYS BY DAVID MAMET: KEEP YOUR PANTHEON AND SCHOOL. September 9 – November 1, 2009 at The Atlantic Theater Company’s Linda Gross Theater, 330 West 20th Street. Tuesdays through Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm and 7pm. For tickets, call TicketCentral.com at (212) 279-4200 or visit www.atlantictheater.org..