Amid the postmodern enthusiasm for deconstruction, old-fashioned storytelling onstage seemed passe. But now that we’re post-postmodern, playwrights have gotten excited about narrative again. Unfortunately, their enthusiasm tends to outpace their structures, and hearing about a “story” seems to stand in for actually enjoying one.

In Glen Berger’s “The Wooden Breeks,” now at the Lucille Lortel, a self-conscious attempt at glorifying the storytelling tradition totters under the weight of its own construction.Mr.Berger has the first component necessary for a good yarn: imagination. But after a solid hour of breathlessly introducing his quirky characters, the lack of the second element – an organically developing plot – comes hurtling to the fore.

Mr. Berger’s framing device and narrator is Tom Bosch (Adam Rothenberg), a cynical tinker carrying a torch for a runaway lover, Hetty (Ana Reeder). When Hetty left him, she also left behind her son by another man – and it falls to Tom to entertain him.Tom pours all his bitterness into telling a nasty story about a fantastical town called Brood where everyone is starving, shut in, or sorely disappointed by love. Even the town lovers refuse to marry, since marriage would extinguish their passion forever.

Brood does a brisk business in grave digging, and many of the townspeople are afraid of being buried alive. Capitalizing on this fear, a saleswoman (also Ms. Reeder) swings into town and seduces most of the men, including Jarl van Hoother (T. Ryder Smith), the reclusive lighthouse keeper. Her product is a little bell that sits on top of burial plots and drives people crazy.

Tom soon loses himself in the story, and discovers he’ll have to finish it to find his way out again. But Brood, with its many coffins and lockboxes and padlocked lighthouses, is a very hard place to escape.

More than 2 1/2 hours long,”The Wooden Breeks” should have more than enough time to tie up its loose ends and deliver its plot ingredients on time. Instead it jerks along in long lulls and sudden rushes of exposition, which do much to disrupt the play’s real moments of emotional insight.

This is a rough ride, to be sure, but it could have been far smoother in a different production. Mr. Berger, even when he’s leapfrogging over certain key scenes (and telling us about them later), does have a pen for texture. On the page, he describes a rich and fantastical world, cozy and cluttered with Grimm-era touches; his stage directions drum up marvelously rich images (he even calls for peat so the stage will smell right).

But director Trip Cullman approaches Mr. Berger’s light and whimsy touches with a hammer and tongs; his stolid direction and mismatched design scheme leaches out much of Mr. Berger’s dark caprice. Of the design team, only costume designer Anita Yavich responds to the call: Mrs. Nelles, the town tapstress, has taps all over her hair, and von Hoother has tiny boxes built into his clothing to display his butterfly collection. On Beowulf Boritt’s bleak, raw-wood set, however, they look as out of place as Dr. Seuss characters behind bars.

Many of the actors seem a bit at sea, hovering between the stylization called for by the script and duller reality. Mr. Rothenberg responds to the tension by yelling his lines; Ms. Reeder whines; and the usually brilliant Mr. Smith delivers a twee caricature, only rarely letting us see his electric intensity.

Veanne Cox as Mrs. Nelles manages to earn huge laughs by simply blowing on her tea. Her plummy, hooting delivery offers a glimpse into how jolly “Breeks” could have been, had Mr. Cullman taken the whole thing a bit more lightly.

Until March 11 (121 Christopher Street, 212-279-4200).