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Drag queen-playwright Charles Busch may spin out yards of flashy narrative threads in his ambitious new comedy The "Third Story," but they don't add up to a fabulous new dress - it's more like a shapeless muumuu with a bland pattern. Busch explores the ways in which storytelling conceals and reveals truth, but his scattershot approach only ensures a lot of head scratching between chuckles.

Framed as a battle of wills between Hollywood has-been screenwriter Peg, played by Kathleen Turner, and her estranged writer son Drew, played by Jonathan Walker, the action cuts to a screenplay-within-the-play and a fondly remembered fairy tale, all of which refract the stormy mother-son relationship.

Part of the problem may be Busch's obvious metaphorical conceits. In a screenplay that Peg begins scribbling on a pad, and badgers Drew to help with, there's also an overbearing mother, mob matriarch Queenie Bartlett, played by Busch at his frisky, cross-dressing best.

Queenie's son, Steve, also played by Walker, wants to cut the apron strings, but Queenie has other plans. The family noir takes a sci-fi turn when Queenie pressures frosty geneticist Dr. Constance Hudson, the delicious Jennifer Van Dyck, to make a clone her for dastardly deeds.

Other characters include a failed genetic lab experiment, played by Scott Parkinson, and a fairy tale gypsy witch named Baba Yaga.

I can't blame you if you can't follow the plot. The dense, ridiculous story-within-a-story approach of "The Third Story" may be deliberate, but it's exhausting.

All the plot contortions outweigh any human drama between Busch's mother and son characters, and there's too little payoff - comic or otherwise. I guess Busch gets some credit for trying to balance so busy and complicated a structure - in heels, no less.

At the very least, there's plenty of high-grade camp on display in "The Third Story." Busch can get laughs from the slightest smirk or wink. But next time, I hope he'll stick to one story, and tell that one better.