Avner the Eccentric shuffles onto the Playhouse stage, broom in hand, more or less. He has a bushy gray beard and matching red shoes and suspenders (which slip at all the right moments). His pants are baggy, the better for things to fall into.

        His bowler keeps falling off his head, but that's not a problem because the number of ways he has to get it back on is as high as some people can count.

        I won't tell you too much about Mr. Eccentric's act because one of its key elements is surprise. He gets himself in all sorts of predicaments while he's counting down the five minutes for the “show” to start.

        How he — and we — wait for the show to start is the show. (How's that for existential?) How he gets out of his various predicaments is anything but predictable.

        OK, I will tell you he is one heck of a balancer. Napkins, peacock feathers, ladders, theater programs. Those are some nose and chin he has.

        He doesn't speak, but his eyebrows do, along with the rest of his very expressive face and body.

        The kids in the audience giggle and squeal with delight. The grown-ups laugh and happily join in performing sound effects. In the hands of a great clown — and Avner is a great clown — we are all kids again.

        Avner is the closest thing you're going to see to Charlie Chaplin in our era. Great clowning, a breathtaking combination of skill and humor and humanity, is a joyous thing.

        The computer-generated dinos in Jurassic Park III can't do half the stuff Avner can. Be stupefied by what he can do with a pile of napkins and a stack of paper cups almost as tall as he is (which, among other things, makes a passable dancing partner).

        The show is also educational: we learn how good it feels to grin for 90 minutes without stopping.

        This so-brief engagement (through July 29) is a summer must.

        One little hint: The evening performances start at 7 p.m. Be on time. Latecomers will be (moderately) (and good-naturedly) tortured. And practice your whistling.

        Avner the Eccentric, through July 29, Playhouse in the Park Marx Theatre, 421-3888.

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