almost an evening

It's rare to see Ethan Coen's name in print without a "Joel &" preceding it. This is unfortunate, considering that my first reaction upon finishing the noted screenwriter's collection of three one-act plays, Almost an Evening, was a desire for more.

The slim book-weighing in at a scant 78 pages-consists of "Waiting," "Four Benches" and "Debate," all distinct but still grounded in various aspects of Coen's previous work. "Waiting" is one of those risky pieces of entertainment that concerns itself with the idea of boredom, particularly whether there is anything worse in the world. "Four Benches" features a Texan who, were this one of Coen's movies, would certainly be played by John Goodman. And the theme of espionage and its all-encompassing absurdity is an extension of what was first explored in Burn After Reading. "Debate" is one of Coen's vulgar works, and its ill-fated argument between the two most prominent images of God is hilarious, pure and simple.

Coen's skill as a playwright is similar to his strengths as a screenwriter. The characters here are few in number but make an impression almost immediately: Nelson ("Waiting") is pitiful in his helplessness, God Who Judges ("Debate") is brimstone incarnate, One ("Four Benches") is pitiful in his impotency and the two couples ("Debate") are domestic brimstone incarnate. This is what makes these works collectively coherent: Despite each play's brevity, the issues dealt with are of life and death, love and hate, heaven and hell.

"Waiting" spans hundreds of millenia, the wear of years taking an acute mental toll on Nelson that is riveting to see in progress. "Two Benches" shows a ridiculously unlucky event and a bystander's unsuccessful and laughably human response. "Debate" tackles a self-aware play and the audience's opinion, basically showing two autonomous-albeit interconnected-stories in a mere 20 pages.

"Debate" is also the most conceptually intriguing of the three. The curtain opens on the staging of a play, striking in its own right, and soon segues into the audience's discussion of the play. Coen inserts likely criticisms of the work into the dialogue of his own cast. For example, Young Woman says, "A good play has characters, you know, real people, or they could be real. I mean if the play just lays out ideas without bothering to put them in the mouth of real characters, then it's just like pretentious," turning the play in on itself. The critique is partially true; however, it's also funny, and when the characters weave in the petty, realistic arguments of their own lives, Coen avoids delving into self-indulgence.

Concepts only get a writer so far, though, particularly when the writer is a playwright-the delivery better be worthwhile. And fortunately in Almost an Evening, it is. Among those who don't like his screenplays, Coen's theater probably won't find any converts, but anyone who appreciates the bone-dry wit and savage irony of films like Fargo and O Brother, Where Art Thou? will be pleased. Cursing, cheap deaths, high-minded ideas; it's all here and in perfectly digestable form.