Brad Larson, a degree candidate at the University of Hawai'i, has written a couple of plays about the trauma of growing up. You can share in that trauma for two more late-night performances — at a time when, presumably, people who have already grown up are fast asleep in their beds.

The scripts reveal a good ear for contemporary twentysomething dialogue and a knack for telling a joke, but both play like a fumbling rehash of something we're sure we've heard before — and probably more than once. The exclamation point in their collective title, "Stop the Clocks!" suggests the playwright may be trying too hard.

"Lost in a Day" is a 20-minute exchange between two ships that pass in the night. Paul (Mark Hill) and Rachel (Maile Kekahuna) briefly share an airport conversation while waiting for separate flights. They mutually decide to bare their souls to total strangers because: (1) it feels good, and (2) its totally safe because they'll never see each other again.

Paul whines about his parents' divorce, his mother's death, his dead-end job, and his lack of direction. Rachel is his therapist. They dance, they kiss, and they part, perhaps with some regret that they won't see each other again. And they do all this in the early Brando school of naturalistic acting that requires mumbling into one's navel, oblivious to the audience in the back row that might like to hear what they have to say.

"Hypegiaphobia's Contribution to Mental Hygiene" is three scenes of a "Friends" episode with a "South Park" sense of what's funny. It also demonstrates what Dante learned 700 years earlier — that a good joke about flatulence can provide comic relief even in the 8th Circle of Hell.

Scene One explains "auto-oral fixation." A character sucks on small plastic model cars. Scene Two defines "acnerexia." It's anyone who believes that frequent washing can cure a bad complexion. Scene Three demonstrates that a swallowed toy will eventually re-emerge (much like Dante and Virgil seeing the sun again after climbing out of Lucifer's crotch.)

All the characters in this not-so-divine comedy behave badly, but none so extremely as the blind date with a string of questions about the relationship between nose rings and nose-picking. Yes, it's that rude. But is it satire, or simply corrupted taste? Playwright Larson (who also directs) isn't yet showing his cards.

Prolonged adolescence is a national phenomenon and adolescent humor is elbowing its way into our family rooms. Taken together, they still don't add up to a full play. But don't try telling that to anyone who gets a charge from making armpit noises.

Joseph T. Rozmiarek has been reviewing theater since 1973.