A Review of "Gettin" the Band Back Together," at the George Street Playhouse Cast members at George Street Playhouse. A 40-year-old man sings "I slept with your mother" to a horrified buddy from high school. A rabbi break-dances in an exhilarating hip-hop version of "Hava Nagila." A "Welcome to Sayreville, N.J." sign gets entrance applause when it is rolled onstage. The band Mouthfeel includes, from left, Ryan Duncan, Brandon Williams and Garth Kravits Juggernaut includes, from left, Adam Monley, Jay Klaitz, Mitchell Jarvis and Manu Narayan. The George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick is presenting the world premiere of "Gettin" the Band Back Together," a playful, good-natured, mildly irreverent and genuinely funny musical whose creators know how to mix the feel-good experience with touches of meanness. Our hero is Mitch Martino (Mitchell Jarvis, who looks a bit like Treat Williams), an investment banker who loses his Wall Street job on his 40th birthday and has to move back in with his mother. In Sayreville. Mitch isn't all that interesting, frankly, but others are. His mother, Sharon (the luminous two-time Tony Award-nominee Alison Fraser), is a sassy, super-fit and glamorous size 2 with, we learn later, some naughty bedroom preferences. She also has financial problems and hasn't paid the mortgage in three months. Which brings us to our villain, Tygen Billows (Brandon Williams). Tygen is the nasty guy from high school who now owns 17 businesses and much of the town's real estate. Mr. Williams, who is a stand-up comedian as well as an actor, is frequently priceless as Tygen, whose specialty is words of wisdom that stop a bit short. It's just like my dad used to say. There are two kinds of people in the world. Ba-dum-bum. Tygen threatens to foreclose on Sharon's house - wait for it - unless Mitch agrees to reunite his high school rock group, Juggernaut, and give Tygen's group, Mouthfeel, a battle-of-the-bands match, for the title of best band in "western eastern central Middlesex County." So, with tongue twirling in cheek, as made supremely clear by the director, John Rando, "Gettin" the Band Back Together" rounds up the guys, who have never left their hometown. Bart (Jay Klaitz) has become a lonely, overweight high school math teacher who still wears Muppet bedroom slippers. Sully (Adam Monley) is a local police officer - because that's what all the Sullivans do - and too shy to ask out his hot fellow officer, Roxanne (Deidre Goodwin, whose best line is "I will seriously shoot you in the face"). Robbie (Manu Narayan) is a second-generation dermatologist, so sick of the dating scene that he has agreed to a traditional Indian arranged marriage. The fifth musician, Kenny, died (while performing in a Meat Loaf tribute band), so the group needs a new guitarist. The audition scene recalls the one in "The Full Monty," with its long table and parade of misguided aspirants. It goes on forever but has its moments: one woman has decided to do a dramatic reading from "When Harry Met Sally" (the orgasm scene). The new band member ends up being a white teenager who wishes he were black and calls himself Ricky Bling (Evan Daves). Ricky, a hysterically original character, brings down the house at a Jewish wedding, with even the bride rocking out. The show has flaws, like that audition and a few other instances in which Ken Davenport's book is a bit too taken with its own cuteness. Mr. Davenport developed the book in improvisations with a group of theater people called the Grundleshotz. Some of Mark Allen's Act I songs are badly derivative and forgettable. The title number (with nifty choreography by Kelly Devine) and the opener, "Jersey!" are winners, however. This is a class act. The Broadway designer Derek McLane's set is a model of 20th-century impressionism, with the orchestra nestled between the rooftops. Ken Billington's lighting design is sometimes odd (the air in Sayreville looks like the haze in a pre-smoking-ban bar), but just as often it is well played for melodramatic laughs. Mr. Allen and Mr. Davenport, if you do move this production to New York, please try to hold onto as much of this cast as possible. Did we mention how endearing Michelle Duffy is as Mitch's high school girlfriend? And it would be a shame to lose Tad Wilson, who is listed in the program only as an ensemble member, and his fresh interpretation of the normally hackneyed town-drunk character. The revelation of the drunk's real identity may be the show's best punch line. For Manhattan audiences, they'll probably cut those sibling-rivalry jabs at the Paper Mill Playhouse. "Gettin" the Band Back Together," music and lyrics by Mark Allen, book by Ken Davenport and the Grundleshotz, and additional material by Sarah Saltzberg, is at the George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, through Oct. 27. Information: (732) 246-7717 or gsponline.org.