Elisabeth Vincentelli

Elisabeth Vincentelli

Theater

Skip ‘stop. reset’

Regina Taylor’s new play, “stop. reset.,” boasts some fun scenes about backstabbing colleagues. But they don’t take up nearly as much time as loony ramblings about alternate realities. Or something.

The esteemed Chicago Black Book Publishers is on the brink: Sales are down and the aging boss, Alexander Ames (Carl Lumbly), mentally checked out after his son was shot two years earlier.

As a snowstorm builds outside, a handful of employees try to help Ames save their paychecks. “If we dropped the Chicago and the Black,” suggests flashy exec Chris (Teagle F. Bougere). “And maybe another name for Books . . . ”

The worker bees also try to survive via good old backstabbing. African-Americans Chris and Jan (LaTanya Richardson Jackson) gang up with Japanese-American Deb (Michi Barall) against Tim (Donald Sage Mackay), who’s white. Then the teams change with the men against the women.

This plays well against the fate of publishing in a digital world — Neil Patel’s scenic design includes floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and Shawn Sagady’s projections drench the set in multimedia images.

Yet this must have felt too mundane for Taylor, an ambitious writer whose Broadway flop “Drowning Crow” was a black take on Chekhov’s “The Seagull.” (Her acting career includes Lilly on TV’s “I’ll Fly Away.”) Our multitasking author — she also directed — has bigger things in mind than office politics or the end of books.

The play’s focus switches to the relationship between Ames and J (Ismael Cruz Córdova), a young janitor. And that’s when the wheels fly off the wagon.

J keeps babbling into his Bluetooth. Or maybe he’s just talking to himself. Ames thinks the cyberpunkish kid can give him a portal into the past and his dead son. The key is a necklace invented by J that teleports the show into wackadoo “Matrix” land. The only time J makes sense is when he blathers about “mumbo-jumbo.”

elisabeth.vincentelli@nypost.com