I assumed that Woody Allen's much-heralded double-bill of new plays would constitute some sort of event. So much for assumptions: Writer's Block, a program of two formulaic one-act comedies, is mediocre and unchallenging work from someone who has delivered better many, many times in the past. It's entertaining in its way, but anyone hoping for something substantial (or substantive) from a leading comic auteur is going to go away disappointed.
The first half of the program is given over to Riverside Drive, which is set at that fancy Upper West Side address. Here, Jim, a successful, neurotic, middle-aged, probably Jewish screenwriter (sound familiar?), is waiting for his pretty young girlfriend so he can break off their relationship. But he's interrupted by Fred, a surly though remarkably articulate homeless man, who eventually informs Jim that he has been stalking him for weeks and that he wants to discuss splitting credit for Jim's last film because he (Jim) stole the idea from him (Fred).
This entirely implausible set-up--surely you or I would find a policeman immediately, but Jim stays and chats with the stranger--provokes forty minutes or so of Allenesque one-liners and Allenesque moral posturing, which is to say that even though Jim is cheating on his wife with a girl half his edge, it's okay. Some of the dialogue is funny, as you would expect, but that's about it.
The second half of Writer's Block is called Old Saybrook. In this piece, two married couples (the wives are sisters) are having a weekend afternoon barbecue when another couple unexpectedly drops in. It turns out that the strangers, Hal and Sandy, used to live in this house years ago and they ask if they can take a look. Hal shows the others a secret compartment hidden in the fireplace, which is found to hold evidence of marital infidelity (husband A is having an affair with wife B, who is, you will recall, his sister-in-law). Complications ensue, and then are upended by a Pirandello-ish conclusion that is so out of the blue as to feel desperate. No matter; the moral of Old Saybrook is that it's okay to fool around behind your spouse's back because everyone else does.