Sequels of classic plays have a mixed history. Some are total bombs such as the famous flop musical A Doll’s Life which follows Ibsen’s Nora after she slams the door on her husband’s stifling household. While others, such as Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House Part 2, based on the same work, offer intriguing insights on the original and modern times. Barbara Cassidy’s Mrs. Loman at Theater Row starts with an intriguing idea: What happens to the widow of Arthur Miller’s tragic everyman Willy Loman after he expires in Death of a Salesman? Unfortunately, Cassidy has plenty of ideas, but fails to develop any of them fully, leaving us with a pale imitation of Miller’s classic.

In press materials, Cassidy states “While having great admiration for [Salesman], I have always had immense trouble with the female characters and the misogyny. I decided I wanted to make a play about a Linda Loman who becomes a very different person after Willy’s death.” In Cassidy’s aftermath of Willy’s demise, Linda (a valiantly vibrant Monique Vukovic) becomes a “different person” in such surface ways as taking a philosophy course at Brooklyn College, flirting with lesbianism (with Willy’s mistress from Boston who has somehow wound up as Linda’s neighbor), smoking pot, listening to jazz, and briefly discussing the Atomic Bomb and America’s rejection of Jewish refugees during WWII. As if we didn’t get the point, the playwright has an unnecessary character called Contemporary Woman (Patricia Marjorie in a mannered performance playing a symbol) emerge from the audience to explain Linda’s metamorphosis.

In addition, Cassidy addresses a plethora of social issues as if checking off boxes on a list of “important topics.” She has Loman eldest son Biff (conflicted Matt “Ugly” McGlade) embark on an affair with an African-American waitress with intellectual ambitions (Ara Celia Butler displaying intelligence and grit). Younger son Happy (an appropriately slimy Hartley Parker) becomes a brutal sexual predator and expresses bigoted sentiments as do neighbors Charley and Bernard (Jerry Ferris and Joe Gregori, believable). It’s a perfectly valid point to incorporate the prevailing sexist and racist attitudes of Salesman’s era (the late 1940s), but it feels as if these attitudes have been plastered on the characters rather than emerging naturally. Linda, her friends and family speak like textbooks rather than real people.

This strange play wraps up with an unearned, bizarre conclusion echoing Miller’s original. The sons confront Linda who has all of a sudden become deranged and dangerous, leading to a ridiculously unbelievable act of violence. Then all the actors assemble on stage and utter absurd lines such as “What does it all mean?” and “This is America.”

Megan Finn’s direction is serviceable but uneven in pacing. The cast does its level best to bring honest life to the derivative, clunky play but are ultimately defeated by its poor construction. In one scene, we are supposed to believe Happy is manhandling Lena, Biff’s girlfriend, while Linda, Biff and Esther, the neighbor (a fine Linda Jones), are all sleeping off the aftereffects of a party in the next room. This is too bad because Monique Vukovic displays earnest emotions as Linda and vivifies the one honest speech in the whole endeavor. In a direct address to the audience, Linda recalls witnessing an African-American little girl falling from a subway train onto the tracks and then quickly fleeing the scene at the next stop. But she doesn’t know if it was a dream or really happened. Linda can’t figure out if she was harboring anti-black thoughts or just trying to escape tragedy. In this one moving sequence, the author is not baldly stating her intentions but offering ambiguity and the actress is delivering that confusion. If Mrs. Loman had more of this subtlety and less on-the-nose sermonizing, it might have been an interesting critique of Miller’s work instead of a confusing and obvious lecture.

While the multiple characters in Mrs. Loman feels stiff and unnatural, Khawla Ibraheem creates an entire believable city in her disturbing and moving solo play A Knock on the Roof at New York Theater Workshop. The most disturbing image here is not the one you’d expect. In a play about life in war-torn Gaza, it’s not a horrifying nightmare of bombs falling or buildings collapsing that sticks in my mind, but a scene of children playing a game. Ibraheem as Mariam, a Palestinian wife and mother struggling to maintain her sanity under the constant threat of Israeli bombardment, describes watching a group of kids pretend to follow a coffin and imitate a military band playing a stirring tribute to the fallen dead. She delivers the shattering observation without tears or histrionics; it’s merely a casual recording of an everyday occurrence in her city. The ordinariness and acceptance of death permeates Mariam’s existence so that it become the subject of children’s play.

The destruction of Gaza has become a constant headline on cable news, but the average American knows little about what everyday life is like for its citizens. Ibraheem paints a vivid picture of that life, centering on practicing for what happens if a bomb falls on her apartment building and how she will deal with her aged mother and six-year-old son. A Knock on the Roof refers to a warning explosion, a small bomb, delivered in advance of a much bigger one so residents will have a chance to flee for their lives.

In a series of darkly funny, but ultimately terrifying vignettes, Mariam rehearses gathering her possessions, carrying a pillow to stand in for her boy, and running as far as she can within five minutes. Her attitude is so relaxed and off-hand, you often forget this is potentially a life or death drill. She argues with her sarcastic mother, scolds her son, copes with restrictions on electricity and water, and humorously chats with the audience. At one point, she asks us if she should take any of the things belonging to her husband, who is studying abroad. At the performance attended, the majority voted no, to much laughter and applause.

Ibraheem creates an entire world with no scenery save for a single chair. (She debates whether of not to take it with her on her run since it’s her favorite.) Oona Curley’s evocative lighting design and Hanna S. Kim’s projection effectively shift the scene and Oliver Butler’s well-paced direction provides keeps the action fluid, which is especially important in a one-person play.

With Donald Trump’s recent surprising and absurd proposal that the residents of Gaza be pushed out in order to make way for a US-owned Riviera-style resort, the fate of Palestinians becomes even more relevant and this Knock on the Roof could not be more timely or pertinent.

Mrs. Loman: Feb. 5—15. Theatre Row, 410 W. 42nd St., NYC. Running time: 90 mins. with no intermission. bfany.org/theatre-row

A Knock on the Roof: Jan. 27—Feb. 16. A co-production of New York Theater Workshop and piece by piece productions as part of the Under the Radar Festival, NYTW, 79 E. 4th St., NYC. Running time: 85 mins. with no intermission. nytw.org.