In the bowels of the Manhattan Theater Club, director Lynne Meadow is desperately stretching a tidy, thought-provoking little playlet into an evening-length drag. David Greig’s “The American Pilot” is a play that would work best at a fast clip, since it’s a story about a situation going downhill, fast. But played at a plodding, portentous pace and busted into two 40-minute acts, this “Pilot” can’t achieve takeoff speed.

Somewhere in the hills of a war-torn country — Mr. Greig keeps us guessing which one — an injured American pilot (Aaron Staton) sits in the middle of a hut. Having dropped out of the sky, he sits glowing like a golden idol, cheerfully awaiting his rescue. The farmer who dragged him out of the mountains (Ron Domingo) has, of course, also dragged home a donkey-load of trouble. A frantic local council member (Yusef Bulos) has alerted the guerrilla captain (Waleed F. Zuaiter), a man who doesn’t like to take off his rebel-issue sunglasses. For a man fighting an ignored war, the big dumb blond in the living room looks a lot like international currency.

Direct-address interior monologues make up the bulk of the play, so the audience has plenty of time to witness the pilot’s unwitting seduction of those around him. He lures them with the air of money and confidence, and even with his connection to American satellites. Mr. Staton plays him as a bit of a boob, but not necessarily a terrible fellow. In fact, Ms. Meadow keeps him from showing much irritation or even pain. While others describe him as barely hanging on to life, he waves jauntily from the floor. It’s a performance that has missed its own desperation.

The production also flies right by the play’s other neat-o characteristic: Mr. Greig has written a contemporary fable. Deliberately heightened language, a network of simple, iconic figures, and even a last-ditch poaching from the Joan of Arc story all combine to create the necessary distance for talking about filmed executions. Ms. Meadow’s set designer Derek McLane, however, treats everything literally. His carefully placed bushels and fastidious stone wall follow the worst trend in stage “realism,” where every “i” is dotted, but nothing seems to carry any weight.

The only thing that does manage some heavy-lifting is Anjali Bhimani, playing the farmer’s innocent daughter. She babbles like a teenager and then prophesies like a priestess. But while she is onstage, even the loser in the flight-suit begins to find his better self.

Despite the production’s many missteps, viewers should still welcome the Scottish playwright’s take on the-world-as-it-is. Serious New York theater has been waiting for five years for an American to tackle world events in the manner of Tony Kushner and Homebody/Kabul. Since then, our most successful local political production was an import of Stuff Happens, and its author, the British David Hare, is already back with his equally savvy The Vertical Hour. That sort of speed and responsiveness is catching our playwrights with their pants down. Instead of engagement, we have provided frothy-mouthed ranting without a lick of sense (Eve Ensler’s The Treatment), cheap off-off Broadway puns on our President’s last name, and mawkish documentary-style tripe. We should be ashamed that we look to British playwrights to mind that massive gap for us. For once, let’s hope our boys cowboy up.

Until December 31 (131 W. 55th St. between Sixth and Seventh avenues, 212-581-1212).