‘Hardware’ Could Use a Little Retooling

“Hardware: A Miracle Play,” at the Stella Adler Theatre, runs wildly in too many directions, sinking at times to unfocused silliness yet rising to yield a few good moments of dialogue and acting.

Writers George Hertzberg, Robin Menken, Adam Menken and Adam Tucker follow the plight of a dedicated hardware store employee, Toby (Adam Menken). After a big conglomerate takes over his independent store, Toby gets the boot because clueless temporary workers are cheaper.

Toby’s aerobics-instructor wife, Misty (Krista Tucker), dumps him, despite their comically synchronized habits, and Toby is reduced to selling cheaply made pyramid-scheme products.

During set changes, mock commercials blare out, advertising various products from Japanese pre-birth educational programs for fetuses to a locating device for false appendages. But this is often distracting, chopping up the flow of a play that is already sluggishly paced under director Robin Menken.

Toby’s journey to enlightenment is sidetracked with funny bits about a multi-tasking Catholic priest (Hertzberg), a parachuting entrepreneur (Hertzberg), the paternalistic attitudes of men (Tucker and Deborah Sharon Stabler) and a mom-and-pop bookstore closing down (Paul Goodman and Robin Menken).

Although some of these characters are humorous, too many of the parts need paring down by a more objective eye than the writers themselves.

*

“Hardware: A Miracle Play,” Stella Adler Theatre, 6773 Hollywood Blvd. Thursdays - Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Oct. 30. $15. (323) 655-TKTS. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.