The skeletal play seen on this occasion, “27 Wagons Full of Cotton,” set in Blue Mountain, Mississippi in 1946, has three characters. There is Flora, the dim-witted, abused wife of Jake, who has secretly set fire to the cotton gin of a a rival, Silva Vicarro, who comes to call when Jake is away and has his suspicion aroused by Flora. That is not all that’s aroused in Silva, who gets revenge by seducing Flora.

Kathryn Luce Garfunkel plays Flora as dumb and emotionally beaten down at the outset, recoiling unhappily as Jake, well-portrayed by Michael Keller, browbeats her into being prepared to lie for him. Justin Holcomb nails the aggressiveness of Silva. (In the film “Baby Doll” the role of Sylva was played by Eli Wallach.) There is too much of a contrast in Flora as she emerges from having had sex with Silva as a flauntingly liberated woman, although it is nice to see that she has betrayed her mean brute of a husband.

“Kingdom of Earth,” set in the Mississippi Delta in 1950, is the more interesting of the two plays, although in certain ways it seems far-fetched. Michael Keller this time acts the role of Chicken, who owns a home that is about to the inundated with water when a nearby property owner plans to dynamite a levee to save himself. Along comes Justin Holcomb as Lot, Chicken’s half brother, to whom we learn has been left the property by their late father. Lot, desperately ill, has returned with his newly-wed bride Myrtle, whom he married after knowing her for only a day.

Myrtle, sexily played by Judy Jerome, and Chicken confine Lot to an upstairs bedroom, from which he repeatedly moans for help, while Myrtle and Chicken bond. There is much talk about getting up to the roof to be rescued by helicopter when the house is flooded. Chicken is beguiled by Myrtle, and with the sexual vibes throbbing, they tear up the marriage certificate and begin to emerge as a couple.

The play succeeds in projecting the greed in individuals, but much of it doesn’t make sense. Why fight over a property about to be ruined? Exactly why did Myrtle marry the fatally ill Lot? Myrtle’s attraction for Chicken, portrayed as a slovenly, unappealing type, is hard to believe. Nevertheless, the actors succeed in grabbing our attention, also commanded by the sheer nastiness at work.