"There We Will Be Buried," at the Whitney Biennial It is a time-honored tradition in New York for visual-art critics to engage in blood sport with the Whitney Biennial. This year, thanks to the curators Jay Sanders and Elisabeth Sussman, who have largely given over the fourth floor to the performing arts, the rest of us can get in on the game. Thus far, the theater and dance additions have been safely blue-chip (Sarah Michelson, Michael Clark, Richard Maxwell). The current fourth-floor resident, the writer, director and actor Yair Oelbaum, is a 23-year-old unknown. But he does have friends in high places: He was introduced to the curators by the Biennial artist Kai Althoff, who is performing in Mr. Oelbaum's play, "There We Will Be Buried." I wish big institutions gave more young artists a shot. But what on earth did Mr. Sanders and Ms. Sussman see in this unfortunate concoction (beyond, if we are being cynical - and we are - the chance to get a twofer out of Mr. Althoff, whose theatrical presence does have its moments)? The play's plot, such as it is, revolves around two mothers, Orpah and Lydia (Mr. Oelbaum and Mr. Althoff), in search of a lost child. They roam through a ruined landscape populated by strange individuals draped in thrift store outfits gone bad. Their chatter is banal, infantile, possessed of magical thinking - and it all comes, pretty much, from grating, prerecorded audiotapes. The performers mouth along as they scuttle about on the debris-strewn, claustrophobic stage, contorting their bodies into ritualistic and tic-ridden little dances. A television monitor plays footage of the same performers, ostensibly offering variations in the narrative. Using technology to fracture experience is by now a well-established tradition. When it works, it works wonders. The echt example, of course, is the Wooster Group, which had its Biennial moment in 1997. Here, like the gender bending, it doesn't do much. It just is, for a long and tedious time. Museumgoers often skip out on durational work, and attrition was high on Thursday afternoon. The restlessness of visual-art fans can be maddening, but, in some situations, walking out as quickly as you walked in is the only sensible response.