Motherhood. Why in the world doesn’t it come with an operating manual?

If it did, then Max, a single lesbian and new mom would not need Goldie to coach her through the nursing process.

And Goldie, a judgmental Orthodox Jewish lactation consultant who disapproves of Max’s sexual orientation, would know how to cope when her teenage daughter announces to all within earshot that she too is gay.

Such is the plight in Karen Hartman’s world premiere comedy, Goldie, Max & Milk, a decidedly offbeat look at family values, which opened last week at Florida Stage. If the play is a bit too schematic in the way it metes out the lessons learned by opposite extremes, it still manages to win us over with its humanity and its heart-on-the-sleeve argument for tolerance.

As the play opens, there are plenty of reasons for Max to be depressed. Her Brooklyn apartment is hopelessly run-down, her longtime lover Lisa has left her in a sudden fit of heterosexuality and Max has no prospects of ever landing a decent job. But she cradles in her arms her new daughter, adorable little Lakshmi Rose, named for the Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity. So how could things not be looking up?

Plenty of ways. Max knows that breast-feeding is best for her baby, but the milk just is not flowing, so her hospital has recommended a lactation expert. Enter Goldie, a no-nonsense mother of seven who teaches Max to nurse, even though she is adamantly opposed to single mothers, let alone lesbians.

The odd-couple matchup between Goldie and Max leads to some clever, pointed exchanges, but they soon run out of steam. Hartman’s inspired notion was then introducing Goldie’s teenage daughter, Shayna Brucha, who visits Max with a noodle casserole and a dilemma of her own. Yes, she is a lesbian too, and she feels certain that if she tells her mother she will be ostracized from the family.

As if that were not enough trouble for one play, the first act ends with Lisa rashly kidnapping little Lakshmi to gain Max’s attention. Not much is made of this intermission cliffhanger other than turning us off to Lisa.

Promethean Theatre’s resident director Margaret M. Ledford makes her Florida Stage debut by gently reining in the play’s potential for caricature. This is particularly the case with Deborah L. Sherman’s earnest Goldie, a woman full of practical wisdom and a religious code that knows no compromise. She meets her match in Erin Joy Schmidt (Max), endearingly clueless on child-rearing, but with a natural maternal instinct. She might be able to cope, if this first week of motherhood had not left her perpetually exhausted.

Sarah Lord is a petite wise-beyond-her-years dynamo as Shayna, Carla Harting manages to add some dimension to Lisa, the play’s villainess, and David Hemphill handles well the odd-man-out role of Lisa’s brother Mike, the sperm donor dad who moonlights as a drug dealer.

Florida Stage appears to be settling in nicely to its new home at the Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse, thanks to Timothy R. Mackabee’s scenic design, which has far more set pieces than would ever have fit in the Manalapan playhouse. Goldie, Max & Milk is lighter than much of the company’s usual fare, but it is not without substance or wisdom.

R E V I E W

Goldie, Max

& Milk

B

Where: Florida Stage at the Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach.

When: Through Jan. 16.

Tickets: $47-$50. Call: (561) 585-3433 or (800) 514-3837.

The verdict: A clash between a lesbian mother and her Orthodox Jewish lactation coach, with each learning from the other in this light comedy of tolerance and family values.