Serious drama can be a critical free space. Offered far less often than frivolous comedy, the gravity of its scope provides self-justification. A film like Brokeback Mountain, for instance, a lightweight and predictable Hollywood melodrama, albeit gloriously filmed, provides an ennobling experience to audiences at many levels—straight audiences feel insightful; gay audiences feel reinforced, and so forth. To be serious in tone is often to be taken seriously.

In the theater, where audiences, by virtue of being smaller, are more discerning, we tend to strive for a higher standard; sometimes to an unreasonable degree. Tennessee Williams’ work was routinely dismissed by the critical elite during his lifetime. But a related opposite impulse is also common—the tendency to praise serious work for being serious, despite flaws. Even lackluster Shakespeare is greeted with gratitude, simply because it is Shakespeare.

It can be difficult to calibrate, to strike the right critical balance in assessing productions of serious work.

The current Buffalo production of C.P. Taylor’s complex and lusciously theatrical play, Good, provides such a challenge. Expansive and multifaceted in scope, Good follows the journey of Halder, an academic in Germany of the 1930s who is able to justify a life of expedience and total self-indulgence, including the abandonment of an inconvenient wife and his ailing mother, leaving behind his children, the seduction of one of his students, the abandonment of his best friend to the Nazis, and the designing of the death chambers at Auschwitz. Evading any suggestion that he is in any way accountable for his decisions, Halder advances higher and higher, never feeling more than the vague twinge of guilt, confident in his belief that his own “good”ness is an immutable reality.

There is no argument that Taylor’s script is wonderful. Halder’s descent into the Nazi movement is all the more horrible because its “unwitting” nature is deliberate. Halder only sees what is convenient for himself.

The production at the Andrews, produced by the Irish Classical Theatre in collaboration with Jewish Repertory Theatre, under the direction of Greg Natale, is faithful to Taylor’s script and provides some marvelous individual elements. It is smartly cast, with Paul Todaro as Halder; Lisa Vitrano as his unloved wife; Saul Elkin as his best friend; Arlene Clement as his mother; and Hallie Clarke as his Eva Braun-esque student fancy-woman-come-wife. There are brilliant flourishes in the minor roles, Christian Brandjes as a fellow SS officer; Kelly Ferguson in a variety of small roles, including a credible Marlene Dietrich impersonation. There is also the luxurious musical addition of Don Jenczka and Mary Ramsey on viola and violin.

What there is not, is any sense of urgency or building toward a climax. The production plods along at its even pace, everything good, but not interesting as a whole. Even a fantasy sequence including the entrance of Buffalo’s most beloved character actor Saul Elkin, leading a Jewish Men’s Choir in full song does not raise the production above its even level.

Individual moments provide isolated excitement: Arlene Clement’s ravings as the mother; Saul Elkin’s articulate arguments which rise to panicked pleading for his life; Lisa Vitrano’s unhinged efforts to keep her marriage together. But these moments stand alone as if each were its own individual play, disconnected from the others. One moment layers over another, while the overall arch of the evening lies in the submerged fragments of a wonderful play. Good? Yes. Worthwhile? Indeed. Theatrically thrilling? Alas not.