A one-act marathon anchored by the Armageddon

It helps that Kate Attwell’s “Jesus in Manhattan” — in which the son of God’s return, in the form of a little girl, prefigures the apocalypse — is also the most ambitious of the five entries in this last installment of Ensemble Studio Theater’s marathon of one-act plays.

Attwell tries to conjure a mounting sense of doom through a fractured narrative: Confusion and awe turn into urgency and dread, then resignation and perhaps even acceptance as seven actors take turns playing various characters in brief, seemingly unconnected scenes.

A woman who speaks only Hindi tries to convince an American visa officer that she absolutely needs to see the brother she hasn’t bothered to visit in 20 years. Another woman panics because her farm’s animals have vanished while rats are everywhere. Eventually, we are told that humanity is condemned to 150 years of darkness — literal darkness that, naturally, includes the EST theater.

As memorable as isolated moments can be, however, “Jesus in Manhattan” is too scattershot, the sum of its parts adding up to less than a satisfying whole. It is also hampered by its short length, coming across like the kernel of a longer piece rather than as a self-contained one-act.

The other four plays in the omnibus, which is presented along with the Radio Drama Network, function better as stand-alones. This does not automatically make them any good, mind you.

Julia Specht’s “i believe in a republic in which money has a great deal to say.” and Stephen Brown’s “The Tourists” both mine a broad comic vein with their satirical aspirations.

In the first, a trio of Gilded Age socialites prepare for a forthcoming ball in Newport. They dream up outlandish festivities while belittling and humiliating the maid, Bess (Megan Tusing).

But Bess’ impulse is not to plot a revolution: All she wants is to one day become just like these women. It is a pointed observation, but the rich ladies’ outré cartoonishness dulls the blade.

Brown goes even bigger with two middle-aged Tennessee women on the loose in Paris, caricatures of the “ugly American” tourist complete with jokes about farting in front of the Mona Lisa. The extroverted Debra (Talaura Harms) is engaged back home but still flirts with the handsome, impossibly sweet French bellhop (Marshall Taylor Thurman). Debra’s friend, Peggy (Helen Coxe), watches the rosé-fueled evening devolve — Coxe’s awkward dance to Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” is the single funniest thing in the entire show — and eventually comedy gives way to sentimentality. It is not an upgrade.

Lloyd Suh’s “Mandarin Duck” and France-Luce Benson’s “Fall” strike a decidedly more melancholy note. Suh introduces us to a pair of Asian women trying to spot the titular fowl in the Central Park pond where it has taken up residence. (This is inspired by the real story of a mysterious Central Park interloper last year.) Clutching birding binoculars, they forge a tentative bond as Youni (Soomi Kim) relates her feelings of invisibility to the more rooted Grace (Cindy Im). Youni is fascinated by the duck because she identifies with it, vulnerable and alone in a crowd. It is a sweet tale, but evaporates into thin air.

In “Fall,” a Haitian-American caretaker (Lori Parquet) is looking after the dementia-afflicted mother (Elizabeth Van Dyke) of a successful African-American businesswoman (Suzette Azariah Gunn). The younger women are at each other’s throats, though eventually acrimony gives way to sentimentality. That is not an upgrade, either.

Event Information:

“37th Marathon of One-Act Plays: Series C”

Through June 29 at the Ensemble Studio Theater, Manhattan; ensemblestudiotheatre.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.