Two new plays that opened recently Off Broadway offer studies in divergent reactions to the stresses of contemporary life.

At Playwrights Horizons, Maple and Vine by Jordan Harrison offers a dark fantasy about a young urban couple seeking a novel way of escaping from their harried lives. And Alan Ayckbourn’s latest comedy, Neighbourhood Watch, at the 59 East 59 Theaters, tells the story of gentle middle-class Britons turned into vigilantes. New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood shares his views.