The name Clifford Odets conjures any number of images: The bespectacled bard of the Bronx, supplying his down-and-out protagonists with a pungently demotic idealism. The conflicted hired gun of Hollywood, writing such brittle screenplays as “Sweet Smell of Success.” The murderous Mateo of Taos, N.M., joining his Spanish brethren in a battle against the despised gringos.

This ludicrous final image comes from the 1931 Group Theatre production of Maxwell Anderson’s “Night Over Taos,” the florid historical melodrama receiving a blustery revival from the Latino-themed INTAR theatre company. This sprawling production, directed with fieldgeneral aplomb by Estelle Parsons, may not feature among its 25-member cast the likes of Odets, to say nothing of Burgess Meredith and the legendary acting teachers Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner. But it offers an intriguing glimpse at the strengths as well as weaknesses of Anderson, a peer of Odets who has fallen into relative obscurity despite straddling stage (“Anne of the Thousand Days”) and film (“The Best Years of Our Lives”) with similar success.

Taos — “the farthest arm of an old civilization,” in one inhabitant’s description — was a lone Spanish outpost in the middle of first Mexico and then, following the region’s annexation in 1846, the United States. And it didn’t join America without a fight: The first American governor was scalped, and Mr. Anderson picks up the action on the night of a fateful skirmish during the short-lived uprising.

Scores of Mexicans and American Indians lie dead or dying in a snowy mountain pass as a result of an ambush gone wrong, but Anderson soon shifts his attention to a love pentagram involving the rebellion’s catalyst, the 60-something Pablo Montoya (Jack Landron). Pablo’s villainous, considerably younger wife, Dona Josefa (Mercedes Herrero), is about to be displaced by an even fresher face, a towheaded Anglo adoptee named Diana (Cheryl Lynn Bowers). This sets off a series of retaliations and subterfuges by Pablo’s two sons, the conniving Federico (Bryant Mason), and the stalwart Felipe (Mickey Solis), each of whom has designs on at least one of Daddy’s brides.

Did I mention this all happens in a single night — one that includes peasant dances, vials of poison, and heated discussions between Pablo and his shrewd consigliere, the priest Father Martinez(Shawn Elliott), about the wisdom of educating the masses of peones?

This last wrinkle marks a notable lapse in Anderson’s consummate skill at propelling the melodrama forward. The legendary Group Theatre is remembered as much for its progressive politics as for its revolutionary injection of naturalism, and its political slant may be accountable for these occasional drifts. (every tangent counts when a play creeps toward — and then breezes past — the three-hour mark.)

This form of lusty war-torn turmoil has fallen out of fashion since the days of Margaret Mitchell, or at least Herman Wouk. And with its unapologetically purple dialogue (matched by Yukio Tsuji’s incessant musical underscoring), “Night Over Taos” is unlikely to generate any renaissance for the form:

DIANA: To love as one wills … to speak and walk like a queen freely in a free land…why, that’snokingdom, Felipe, it’s heaven!

FELIPE: Heaven we can never have.

DIANA: Are those the ways of the north?

FELIPE: Yes.

Accents come and go throughout Ms. Parsons’s production, along with general indecisiveness over how contemporary to play the material. Mr. Solis and the superb Mr. Elliott find the slightly arch rhythms of the period — it comes as no surprise to learn that Anderson was a proponent of verse drama — while Mr. Landron and several others plow forward with a jarringly conversational quality. But if Anderson’s high-flown declamations proved no more timeless than the doomed community he dramatized, INTAR has captured the quixotic fervor that animated both the outpost of taos and the illustrious author who gave it its last gasp.

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For those seeking sophisticated entertainment beyond that of your typical PBS pledge drive, one viewing of “Three Mo’ Tenors” will be more than enough. But if one evening of Ray Charles medleys and AM-radio ballads doesn’t suffice, tenors seven through nine are at the ready.

Creator-director-choreographer Marion Caffey has in fact brought two trios of African-American performers for the New York stint of this relentlessly eager-to-please touring hit (which has in fact been featured on PBS), a genre- and race-hopping twist on the “Three Tenors” operacrossover phenomenon. And “Three Mo'” completists will need to see both casts, as each features several solos specific to that trio. (The producers have cagily dubbed the two casts “1” and “A,” lest any patrons bristle at spending $76.50 to see “Cast 2” or “Cast B.”) As luck would have it, I attended the one with Frank Wildhorn and Whitney Houston instead of Stephen Sondheim and Marvin Gaye.

Both casts boast of tackling 10 genres in less than two hours, a feat that necessitates lurching from, say, Usher’s “Yeah” to a trio of Negro spirituals. And while I didn’t keep count, all three members of Cast 1 held their own with whatever styles were thrown their way. Ramone Diggs has wonderful command of dynamics, Phumzile Sojola blends a bell-like tone with an effervescent stage presence (his Act I finale, an exuberant South African romp called “Dali Wam,” was a highlight), and Kenneth Alston Jr. makes every syllable distinct even while singing in a stratospheric falsetto. This last skill, however, proves to be a mixed blessing when a medley inexplicably devoted to the rock group Queen includes such interpolations as “3MT will rock you!” A sizable percentage of the audience seemed happy to be rocked at a recent performance, with the number of clap-alongs outpacing the actors’ frequent exhortations to put their hands together. Neither the washed-out synthesizer accompaniments nor the middleof-the-road banality of the material nor the stiff dance sequences appeared to meet with even the mildest objection. Just imagine the response that would greet “Celtic Woman” or a doo-wop reunion spectacular.

“Night Over Taos” until October 20 (155 First Ave., between 9th and 10th streets, 212-352-0255);

“Three Mo’ Tenors” until January 27 (422 W. 42nd St., between Ninth and Tenth avenues, 212-239-6200).