Tennessee Williams apparently had a bottomless drawer filled with forgotten plays and scripts, so it’s no surprise that in recent years they have begun to pop up with regularity. The latest example is Moises Kaufman’s adaptation of One Arm. Based on a 1944 short story which the playwright later adapted into an unproduced screenplay, this short, pungent drama isn’t truly successful enough to stand on its own terms. But it represents a fascinating coda to the prolific Williams’ career, and it has been given a vividly theatrical production courtesy of the New Group.

Kaufman’s self-reflective adaptation uses the device of a narrator (Noah Bean) reading aloud both verbatim passages from the short story and camera directions from the screenplay.

Set in 1967, it centers on Ollie Olsen (Claybourne Elder), a magnificent male specimen despite the fact that he only has one arm. A former Naval boxing champion, Ollie lost his limb in a car crash, and has since resorted to supporting himself as a male hustler serving both male and the occasional female clients.

“I would never let a man kiss me, I’m not gay trade,” declares the proud Ollie, who picks up his seedy clientele on the streets of New Orleans and other cities. Highly desired despite his incomplete physicality, he eventually finds himself working in a porn film, where a violent encounter with the director leads to his landing on death row for murder.

Aficionados will recognize the playwright’s familiar themes on display, with the piece featuring a sexual frankness he was necessarily forced to obscure in his earlier works. 

While the symbolic resonance of both Ollie’s missing appendage—he’s referred to at one point as looking like “a piece of antique sculpture”--and his eventual dire fate is laid on a bit thick, the work nonetheless has enough fascinating elements to make its excavation more than welcome.

Director Kaufman has provided a vividly atmospheric production which makes excellent use of music and sound effects to augment its bare-bones staging. And the chiseled Elder is so physically commanding (and suitably emotionally blank) that he makes the lead character’s irresistibility entirely credible.

Acorn Theater, 410 W. 42nd St. 212-239-6200. www.telecharge.com.