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Almost a Play, Waste of an Evening

By Matt Windman | STAFF WRITER

Peter Bartlett, Jayne Houdyshell, Linda Lavin and Mike Doyle in Paul Rudnick's new comedy, "The New Century", comprised of four intertwined short plays. (ARI MINTZ)

Almost an Evening The New Century

We advise you to avoid any play that is merely a collection of short sketches by a single playwright. It usually serves the playwright's temptation to combine unrelated stuff and declare it a finished product. This week we were unimpressed by two new Off-Broadway plays by established authors built on this formula.

The title of Ethan Coen's "Almost An Evening" even attests to how it barely constitutes an actual play. Ethan and his brother Joel (a.k.a. The Coen Brothers) are Academy Award-winning filmmakers for works like "No Country for Old Men, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Fargo."

"Almost an Evening," which runs 90 minutes with no intermission, consists of three short black comedies: "Waiting," where a man is forced to wait forever in a bureaucratic-style purgatory; "Four Benches," about an assassination in a sauna; and "Debate," which begins as a debate between different personalities of God and then devolves into a metatheatrical comment on that debate.

In spite of a top-notch cast including Mark Linn-Baker, Mary McCann and F. Murray Abraham, "Almost an Evening" ought to be titled "Waste an Evening." The one-acts, while imaginative, are no better than the amateurish writing exercises you'd find in any Introduction to Playwriting class.

Paul Rudnick's "The New Century," which runs 90 minutes with an intermission, consists of three monologues by three eccentric characters, followed by a scene where they all meet up. The characters include Mr. Charles, an aging flamboyant homosexual; Helene, a Long Island Jewish mother of three gay children; and Barbara, a Midwestern craftswoman and competitive cake-decorator.

As always, Rudnick's flair for gay comedy and cute one-liners shines, but the play itself is inconsequential. While Linda Lavin's performance as Helen is wicked funny, and Peter Bartlett, in a ridiculous toupee, is amusing as Mr. Charles, Jayne Houdyshell's monologue as Barbara falls flat, and the final scene is awkward and uninspired, ending in an idiotic disco sequence.

"Almost an Evening" plays at the Bleecker Street Theater, 45 Bleecker St, 212-239-6200, through June 1
"The New Century" plays at Lincoln Center Theater, 150 West 65th St, 212-239-6200, through June 8.