Culture clunk: the Stendhal Syndrome artlessly revives two Terrence McNally playlets about our reaction to art.

The Stendhal Syndrome

* Written by Terrence McNally * Directed by Leonard Foglia * Starring Isabella Rossellini and Richard Thomas * Primary Stages, New York City (through March 27)

Hollywood screenwriters get big bucks for churning out dialogue in which characters spew their nastiest, smuttiest thoughts, so why shouldn't a Tony award-winning playwright like Terrence McNally go the lowest-common-denominator route? The Stendhal Syndrome, McNally's new off-Broadway show, consists of two one-act plays. In Full Frontal Nudity three American tourists are ushered by a tour guide into the Accademia Gallery in Florence to view Michelangelo's David, and we get to hear their mostly idiotic reactions to the artwork, to Italy, to the tour, and to each other. "My best friend in high school, Mikey Nussbaum, had balls like that," says Leo, the straight-guy Jersey sleazeball who's fixated on the Carrara marble genitals in front of him. "How old was David when he posed for Michelangelo?" the self-centered blond Lana asks the multilingual tour guide, whose name is Bimbi. Get the picture?

Prelude & Liebestod focuses on a world famous orchestra conductor (think Leonard Bernstein) during a performance of that popular Wagner concert piece. While the sublime music plays (in its entirety, twice), we hear the conductor's mundane internal monologue--a jumble of narcissistic preening, erotic yearning, and scathing commentary about the concertmaster, the soprano, his wife, and a young man cruising him from the balcony (we hear their thoughts spoken aloud too).

This pairing of playlets has an ironic point to make about art appreciation: Visual and musical masterpieces offer us an opportunity make contact with forces of nature, history, and human achievement at its highest level, yet all too often we forfeit that opportunity by obsessing about trivia (What's for lunch?) or reducing everything to the level of me, myself, and iPod. But the plays themselves are trashy, cliche-ridden, bottom-drawer offerings from the out author of excellent plays like A Perfect Ganesh and The Lisbon Traviata. The only reason they're being produced right now, in a gorgeous new intimate off-Broadway theater, is that the producers managed to convince two stars to be in the show.

Making her U.S. stage-acting debut as the tour guide and the conductor's wife, Isabella Rossellini proves why she became famous as a model--she is exquisitely beautiful, and let's just say Meryl Streep need lose no sleep. Playing the conductor, Richard Thomas looks handsome bearded and gives a brave performance in a 10-year-old play that doesn't deserve revival. The title of the show refers to the swoony sensory overload some people experience in the presence of great art. A better title might have been Master Crass.

Shewey writes on theater for The New York Times.