Glass. Kill. What If If Only. Imp.

Also, while we’re at it: Why?

Deirdre O’Connell as Gods in “Kill.”. Photo: Joan Marcus

This sampling of fresh Caryl Churchill – four unrelated one-acts written by the celebrated dramatist in 2019-21 – is better than no Churchill at all. However, this grab bag – even when fleshed out with a pair of circus acts – is a bit on the skimpy side, hardly warranting its 2 ½-hour running time. But if bits and bobs are all we get for now, so be it.

The opening segment, Glass, imagines the inner life of a delicate figurine (Ayana Workman) sharing a high shelf with other knickknacks. Her fragility is such that any kind of emotion – young love, say – could and will prove fatal (Bray Poor provides the inevitable sound effect).

And here, having barely begun, we take a break for a soothing circus act, as Junru Wang, seemingly blessed with ball-joint knees, slowly, elegantly executes inverted lento arabesques while balanced on one hand. Why the sideshow – as counterpoint to the fragile girl, perhaps? You’d have to ask James Macdonald, who not only directed but most likely helped shape the program. Later, we get another gratuitous, if enjoyable scene break in the strapping form of juggler Maddox Morfit-Tighe.

First, though, we’re treated to Deirdre O’Connell acing a skit-like scene that warrants the whole carte de menu. Kill is a monologue rant spewed by a fed-up Greco/Roman figure – collectively ID’d as the singular, gender-ambivalent “Gods” – perched high on a cotton-ball cloud amid an inky sky (set by Miriam Buether, lighting by Isabella Byrd). Gods, clad in an elegant ivory-silk pantsuit (costumes by Enver Chakartash), is quite fed up with humanity’s shenanigans: they deplore the earthlings’ notion of appropriate behavior (revenge slaughters and the like). Still. like a gossipy celestial housewife, they’re clearly intrigued by humans’ bloody hijinks.

Eminently dispensable is a subsequent scene in which a bereaved man (Sathya Sridharan) conducts a conversation with his recently departed beloved. In a striking stage effect (Buether again), the walls rise to reveal a bunch of ragtag figures intent on joining the conversation, any conversation. The scene comes across as mere noodling, however – a germ of a notion, far from fruition.

The closest that the program comes to presenting a standard drama – it, too, appears truncated – is the final segment, in which a couple of co-habiting, nattering, aging North England cousins, Dot and Jimmy (O’Connell and John Conlee), play Cupid to a newly arrived Irish immigrant, their niece Niamh (Adelind Horan). The plot hinges on a demon that cranky Dot claims to be keeping on hand should she need to mete out justice. It’s unclear whether the planned payback is overdue or impending, but in any case, the suspense is nil – like the depth of the premise.

There is some compensation, though, in hearing Conlee – too seldom seen of late on New York stages – repeatedly exclaim “Don’t you think she’s a pretty girl?” She is, and Jimmy — perhaps deceptively — is the very picture of innocent enthusiasm. This playlet could go places.

Public Theater, to May 11