For most of Caryl Churchill’s new play, “Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?,” Sam and Guy lounge together on a sofa, cuddling between bouts of strenuous indoctrination. Sam (as in Uncle Sam, played by Scott Cohen) is the one seducing Guy (Samuel West), a Brit of middle age, away from his wife and kids.

Under the tutelage of the manic Sam, Guy’s eyes are opened to the joys of rigging elections, torturing suspects, bombing civilians, engineering pandemics, and countless other blood sports undertaken in the name of world domination. Guy is an eager pupil, the dog who avidly follows his master, yearning to be petted.

But while the image of Tony Blair sidling up to George W. Bush generated big buzz in Ms. Churchill’s native Britain, where the play made its debut last fall, audiences here are unlikely to get a similar charge from it. Deprived of that excitement, “Drunk Enough” is essentially a political rant, surprisingly lacking in substance and subtlety.

James Macdonald’s crisp direction does give the production strong visual style. A rectangle of light bulbs frames the proscenium, creating a kind of sealed-off pocket in which the couch rests and eventually floats, rising into midair. There are elegant touches in the staging — like the fact that coffee cups and ashtrays dropped from the couch fall into an eerie, soundless abyss. And Mr. Macdonald skillfully draws out the relationship between the two men, making it more intimate than overtly sexual.

There is appealing potential in this concept — the overlay of sexual power and political power, the intimacy of a couch. Yet despite its brief (45 minutes) run time, “Drunk Enough” feels tired almost as soon as it begins. The stylized dialogue — self-consciously clipped, so that the sentences trail off unfinished — feels gimmicky. The plot proceeds almost by rote. And the characters are so crudely drawn that this might almost be a playwriting exercise involving a wolf and a sheep. Sam and Guy are not characters: They’re straw men.

To be certain, this crudeness is part of Ms. Churchill’s design. She is too smart and skillful a playwright not to realize the bluntness of her instrument. In particular, the litany of ungodly acts espoused by Sam and adopted by Guy becomes a one-note samba. By indiscriminately listing actual American actions (such as the use of napalm) alongside fantastical accusations (engineering the bird flu outbreak), Ms. Churchill undermines the credibility of her own screed.

Indeed, Ms. Churchill’s viciously one-sided depiction of America — a kind of greatest-hits list of its crimes, real and imagined — may alienate even those in the audience who are in basic agreement with her on many of the issues she raises.

Ms. Churchill is now in her late 60s, and perhaps there is some connection between that fact and the fact that the politics of “Drunk Enough” feel dated. Her themes — America’s done terrible things, and England’s a dupe — register as pat oversimplifications. In any case, watching two flat characters go through the paces of a joyless, utterly predictable exercise makes for meager theater.

Until April 6 (425 Lafayette St. at Astor Place, 212-967-7555).