Writer/director Patrick Wang’s A Bread Factory, available in two parts via VOD this Tuesday, is a sprawling, quirk-filled ensemble film that attains a kind of greatness by its conclusion. With its many interlocking characters and plot threads, lengthy monologues, and a generous dash of absurdity (especially in Part 2), the film can sometimes feel a little unwieldy. However, A Bread Factory (the title refers to a fictional small-town arts space) is full of droll wit and affection for both its characters and for theater in general, resulting in a highly watchable four hours. Filmed like a play, with static camera angles and no soundtrack, the film is as visually simple as it is narratively complex.

At the heart of the A Bread Factory are Dorothea (Tyne Daly) and Greta (Elizabeth Henry), a older couple who have devoted their lives to running Checkford’s humble arts space, housed in, yes, a former bread factory.  The women and town are shaken and stirred by the recent arrival of May Ray, a ridiculously over-the-top performance-art couple (Janet Hsieh and George Young) who have opened their own slick space, Forum for the Exercise of Experience and Living (FEEL). Some townspeople are intrigued by May Ray’s otherworldly, highly synchronized performances, while others are scornful. At stake is the arts budget allocation of the local school board, without which the Bread Factory could not operate.

Part 1: For the Sake of Gold consists of a loose series of vignettes featuring various townspeople and visiting artists involved with the Bread Factory, including cranky film director Jordan (Janeane Garofalo), who is hilariously brash with a class of kids. Interspersed throughout are glimpses of rehearsals for Dorothea’s upcoming production of Euripides’ Hecuba, starring Greta and distinguished older actor Sir Walter (he was knighted), played with gusto by the late Brian Murray.

We meet several other intriguing characters, including Simon (Keaton Nigel Cooke) a precocious young projectionist who works at the space; and forthright Checkford Journal editor Jan (Glynnis O’Connor), who causes a visiting poet to pass out when she flatters him during an interview. (“Poets, you know … he’s famished,” she explains.) Jan takes under her wing budding journalist Max, who we later find out is the son of the new teacher’s rep, who is having an affair with a member of the school board, who is married to the guy who runs the diner, whose daughters figure prominently in Hecuba. Gradually, the characters’ relationships to each other are revealed, which helps explain a lot of the action. (There’s a refreshing lack of exposition in the dialogue, as well as an impressively wide range of ages and physical types represented.) This untangling is part of the film’s fun.

Part 1 builds to the school board budget hearing, during which numerous people testify, including an amusingly shallow visiting movie star whose testimony is clearly a memorized monologue.

In Part 2: Walk with Me a While, things get (more) surreal as extended singing and tap dancing sequences break out in a few scenes. A character disappears without explanation. There are poetic soliloquies, metaphorical stories told by various characters and some illuminating background on the mysterious May Ray.

When we finally see an actual scene from the Bread Factory’s Hecuba performed, it is powerful and moving, despite the small opening-night crowd. (“It was such a hit in the Renaissance” sighs one character disappointed in the turnout.)

Offbeat and funny, with a great deal of heart and an underlying message about the survival of small arts organizations, A Bread Factory brings to mind both the wonderful Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows and just about any Robert Altman film. Patrick Wang’s creation, however, is very much its own delightful thing.

A Bread Factory is available VOD Tuesday, Sept. 24; on DVD & Blu-ray Tuesday, Oct. 8.

—Marina Zogbi