A Play is a Poem is theater lite. In another age its six comic sketches probably would have been incorporated into a musical revue, making for a more balanced and enjoyably entertaining evening. Instead, A Play is a Poem’s sketches have been asked to stand on their own (though Nellie McKay does warble a few original tunes between scene changes in a dreamy, ditzy way). Isolated like that, the sketches seemed thin and a bit trivial, though they did draw lots of laughs from the opening-night audience at the Taper. Written by Ethan Coen, half of the writing/directing team that has given us such iconic movies as “Fargo” and “The Big Lebowski,” A Play is a Poem takes satirical aim at such familiar targets as father-son relationships, private-eye stories, the movie industry, and southern belles. Director Neil Pepe goes for a quick-blackout style to give the show pace and pizzazz, and the eleven actors in the ensemble prove be gifted at the kind of edgy comedy Coen specializes in. Although I didn’t laugh half as much as the star-studded Hollywood audience did (Brad Pitt, William Macy, etc.), I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy myself.
