THE DOG PROBLEM

Atlantic Theater Company, 336 W. 20th St. Through July 1. Tickets: (212) 239-6200.

THERE is in the play a yellow Labrador retriever called Buddy. He squats on a park bench and listens to a long speech from the actor playing his owner about how he once ate a checkbook – he sits quietly and drools and eats a biscuit.

He’s spectacular. He’s the only good element in “The Dog Problem,” a phony, joyless, pointless drama about street mafiosi by David Rabe, author of “Streamers” and “Hurlyburly.”

Take the dog played by Buddy. After listening to his owner, he is led off by a goombah hoodlum to be shot and is next on stage in a green plastic bag.

Why? Well, it seems he crawled into bed with his owner (Larry Clarke) and a woman (Andrea Gabriel) who is the sister of a ratty hoodlum who suspects something untoward happened and has persuaded an ailing mafioso boss (Victor Argo) to arrange the canine hit.

Oh, brother. This whole sorry story, which includes a woman performing sex in public and an old man relieving himself in a garbage can, has no reality of any nature.

It’s neither believable nor funny, especially as lugubriously directed by Scott Ellis and acted with needless seriousness by a lost cast. It’s a heap of tired old clichés taken not from life, but from old movies.

Those who are objecting to the stereotypes in “The Sopranos” ought to get a whiff of this. People have names like “Uncle Malvolio,” “Tommy Stones” and “Priest”; they hang out in dirty parks downtown and constantly talk on cell phones.

The play gropes for a spiritual dimension but it falls flat: there’s a Jewish guy with psychic powers and a priest who is bullied into hearing the confession of an old don who is not sorry for his sins.

It’s all incredible and it’s all endlessly dull, without a shred of life. If I were Buddy, I’d get another agent.