Having seen the American Repertory Theater's productions this season of Gatz and Sleep No More, the first a wildly successful experiment in theatrical form, the second a slightly less-successful experiment in theatrical form, I expected its production of Paradise Lost to impress and astound. Instead, it disappointed, even though nothing about it was overtly unsuccessful. In fact, the acting was uniformly solid and I actually enjoyed some of the directorial choices, such as incorporating huge video screens as close-ups of the actors, in addition to the expansive set design. Perhaps the combination of high expectations, an outdated script and other, more bewildering aspects of the direction led to my frustrating experience.Paradise Lost, written in 1935 by then-Communist playwright Clifford Odets, would seem to offer compelling parallels to our own disheartening economic times. The Gordon family, composed of Leo, Clara and their children, are small business owners who face a progressive decline in their financial security.

Leo's partner, the coldly pragmatic Sam Katz (Jonathan Epstein), pushes Leo to ever-more-extreme measures to maintain their family's relative wealth. Luckily Sam avoids becoming a cliché when his wife Bertha, played by Prof. Adrienne Krstansky (THA), upends the audience's expectations in a single illuminating scene to reveal Sam as more than a wealth-obsessed business partner.

However, Leo, played with intelligent understanding by David Chandler, is not a businessman-he has dreams of something greater, a meaning to life based on human connections, not transactions. He keeps asking, "What is to be done?" The trouble is, nothing can be done; the Great Depression is afoot, and it is no time to be a dreamer or idealist. When Clara (Sally Wingert) first says, "I married a fool" in the opening scene, it's in the context of a congenial family gathering, stated with fondness a little teasingly. When she repeats it in the last act after the family has been evicted, her statement has a touch of resigned regret. Even when Leo makes a grand, uplifting speech at the very end of the play, a speech that is supposed to unite everyone, to inspire them to keep hoping despite financial reality, it sounds unconvincing. Though Chandler performs it as well as anyone can, it's only rhetoric.

Odets simply can't offer any answers as to why the American economy is collapsing or conceive of any realistic solutions to it, and he doesn't make this lack of an answer into a compelling dramatic journey, either. Mr. Pike (Michael Rudko), the furnace man who drifts in and out of scenes to spout blue-collar socialist wisdom with gritty Bukowskian eloquence, isn't enough, especially because his dialogues verges into the didactic. The Gordon family's live-in friend Gus Michaels (Thomas Derrah), isn't enough either, even though he turns an initially comedic role into one filled with poignancy and sympathy.

The younger generation, comprised of the Gordon family's children-piano-obsessed Pearl, former track star Ben, introspective-but-terminally-ill son Julie- offers no hope or answers, except unfolding tragedies and dying dreams. Pearl (Therese Plaehn) is a one-note character sketch who offers, at most, background music, as she lugs an electronic keyboard around the stage and hides behind headphones (a technologically anachronistic directorial touch that did not work). Julie is subtly acted by T. Ryder Smith but, again, is little more than a backdrop. And Ben (Hale Appleman) is supposed to be the golden boy but is so clearly set up for failure as he discovers he's one of those men who peaked in life at 18 and can't do anything to make a living, that even his wife Libby's straying ways are boring, preordained and ultimately uninspiring.

Some of these characters and many of these scenes could have worked well on their own, studied out of context in a classroom, but none of it coheres into a satisfying whole. You see the Gordon family and its friends gradually fall into financial ruin, but because the characters are so limited and the themes are too familiar, you don't care as much as you should, and you're even a little bored.

Certainly, director Daniel Fish tries to explore these themes in a novel way as he revives the 1935 play to something more fitting for 2010. For instance, at particular times during the play, characters begin to speak into microphones, altering their voices as if they're using this exciting new technology called the radio, which provides mixed results, although it does tend to amplify important dialogue. During other important scenes, a giant backdrop shows close-up videos of actors' actions, which I actually found useful, because you could really see subtle aspects of characters, like their faces or gestures.

Video is also used to great expository effect during certain scenes involving outside characters or flashbacks because it allows the play to quickly delineate information without breaking away from the scene. Unfortunately, other touches are painful attempts to remind the audience that this play is still contemporary-witness the Kerry/Edwards T-shirt Clara wears during the curiously modern eviction of the last scene, blatantly bringing to mind the foreclosures and real estate bust of our times.

I really wanted this production to be compelling, meaningful and worthwhile, but it fell just short, even though so many aspects of it did work. Odets has not aged well, and perhaps the rarity of revivals of this play is for good reason-it's just difficult to pull off for a 21st-century audience. And so many other, better plays have explored similar themes about what is essentially the American dream and its collapse that this one does not seem to offer anything exciting or different. The American Repertory Theater should continue to revive shows worthy of its time and effort.