Almost an Evening

GODS DELUSION Abraham, left, and Linn-Baker wrangle over sin.

Photograph: Doug Hamilton

The title of Ethan Coen’s theatrical debut, Almost an Evening, sounds preemptively apologetic, but it turns out to be a case of overstatement: This wan trio of absurdist playlets barely amounts to half a show. Had it not been written by one member of a successful filmmaking brother team, would it have been presented at the Atlantic with an insanely good cast that includes F. Murray Abraham and Elizabeth Marvel? Doubtful.

Although No Country for Old Men, the latest Coen brothers picture, hews closely to the Cormac McCarthy source novel and avoids extraneous jokey flourishes, past movies by the Coens alerted viewers to their love of outsize characters, slapstick and theatrical language. Stylish parody is a frequent tactic in their work, and that’s the playwright’s approach here: existential drama, spy thrillers and avant-garde pretensions are all tweaked over the course of 80 minutes. The first play, Waiting, is a perverse one-joke sketch in which the afterlife resembles a retro bureaucracy, complete with typewriters and rotary phones. In the meandering Four Benches, a British secret agent (Jonathan Cake) becomes disillusioned with espionage and tries to live honestly. Finally, Debate starts off with an amusingly profane theological argument between a God Who Judges (Abraham) and a God Who Loves (Mark Linn-Baker), but dribbles into a satire of theatergoing.

None of these glib pieces really satisfies. Weighty moral and metaphysical questions are raised, only to be skirted and winked at. Neil Pepe stages the action as cleanly as possible, and each member of the overqualified ensemble deserves a meaty role in the next Coen project—as long as it’s celluloid.—David Cote