Right off the homey buzz of Thanksgiving, Playwright’s Horizons opens the new Richard Nelson play, “Rodney’s Wife.” In a kind of mid-century “Phaedra,” Mr. Nelson lets us know that all those uncomfortable silences at family dinners really mean something.

The play, told in one long flashback to 1962, follows a climactic 24 hours in the life of our title character, also known as Fay (Haviland Morris). Rodney (David Strathairn) and his family have come to Rome, where Rodney is acting (reluctantly) in a Spaghetti Western. Fay is his second wife, and she, his widowed sister Eva, and his daughter Lee (Jessica Chastain) all maneuver around his drunken posturing with good grace.

That thin skin of civility ruptures when Lee announces her engagement, something that clearly clotheslines her stepmother. Disclosures about the nature of Fay and Lee’s friendship rip at the entire family, but, unfortunately, won’t rip it apart.

Certainly Mr. Nelson’s decision to dramatize a decision this dated felt surprising at first. Today – or even then had Faye felt a little more adventurous – she would have ditched her hard-drinking, irritatingly needy husband for a more honest life. But having just seen the contemporary version of this scenario (Winter Miller’s “The Penetration Play”), I thought his decision to write about an earlier time makes sense.

Without the sweet apron and sculpted hairdos, he would never be able to ratchet the suspense of his first scene so high, or sucker punch us quite so sweetly. Watching brittle, confused Faye try to figure out why Lee has been lying to her, and wondering why she seems so damaged by it, throws the jaded audience off their guard. It’s a much better secret when circumstances help you hide it.

The era also allows for Ms. Morris’s edgy laughter, and the surprise of her eruptions into impropriety. Playing against the archetypal wifely image lets Ms. Morris work in several different keys at once. Her choices work beautifully, but directing his own work, Mr. Nelson doesn’t adequately mix up the deliveries onstage.

In isolation, Maryann Plunkett’s Eva would be a gorgeous assemblage of tics and shivers. When she is alone with her brother, for instance, she acts the cloying monster to the hilt. But when sandwiched between Mr. Strathairn’s stammerings and the ditherings of poor Fay, all the verbal hesitation can drive an audience member to fits.

The same unfairness that swamps Fay clogs up the final third of “Rodney’s Wife.” Why does the husband get to take center stage? The conversations between Fay and Lee in the first scene, largely made of looks and gestures, have 10 times the power of the long, painful discussion between husband and wife at the end.

Mr. Strathairn, who I kept wishing a little more heft, does get a gorgeous monologue, in which he relates the tale of his family plot. Apparently his father, much against his wife’s wishes, interred her in a grave rather than sprinkling her ashes to the wind. That same highhandedness on Rodney’s part signals us that in a way, Fay is already dead. He can do with what he wishes – and Mr. Nelson lets him get away with it.

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So, being married to a famous man can clearly be an eclipsing experience, even if you’re a brilliant actress in your own right. In her one-woman show, “Vivien Leigh: The Last Press Conference,” Marcy Lafferty shows us another one. Ms. Lafferty (onetime wife of William Shatner, so she’s been there) gives us a rather waxy rendition of Vivling’s spectacular life, complete with its central irony. Though Leigh gave two of the iconic portrayals of American cinema as Scarlett and Blanche, she was still known here and home in England as Laurence Olivier’s wife.

Vivien had a darn sight more grit than poor Fay – one of the best illustrations of life with “Larry Boy” has her slapping his face with a wet towel, so he would stay awake to keep her company. Picture that with the hero of Agincourt. The story of her life has enormous dramatic potential, which Ms. Lafferty’s buy-the-book recounting successfully explores. An undiagnosed manic-depressive who let masterpieces like “A Streetcar Named Desire” push her to madness, the tiny beauty lived a public life wildly at odds with her private one. She coupled her weakness with a steely will, ruthlessly gaining roles and Olivier at the expense of others (a first husband and a daughter) and herself.

Ms. Lafferty, prowling at close range, hasn’t got quite the right steel for the job. The story, particularly its gossipy bits, has enormous appeal, but Ms. Lafferty dramatizes them in too much of a rush. She evokes a few spectacular images, like her first meeting with David O. Selznick at the “burning of Atlanta,” when he torched the old Hollywood sets to make room for his masterpiece. But by and large, the portrayal is rather polite, and we’re better off imagining those scenes, and their attendant heat, for ourselves.

“Rodney’s Wife” until December 19 (416 W. 42nd Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, 212-279-4200).

“Vivien Leigh: The Last Press Conference” until December 19 (59 E. 59th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues, 212-279-4200).