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Once we find out it's a play, which is obvious because Cruise is clearly controlling a cat puppet with his hand, etc... the plot device used for slipping back into the material from the play is that they're doing a dress rehearsal. So we get an update on Cruise's personal life (think Birdman), he's working himself up about the performance and his family's well being and all these things. Then we slip into the next scene, and it's played straight, then back out, and so forth. The play itself comprises quite a bit of the film's actual runtime, but any steam it had, which is ultimately very little, is released by the reveal coming so early. We're now watching this crudely written and broadly performed thing knowing that it's just a dress rehearsal, so it loses any entertainment value it may have had at first. We're just... still watching it.

The director of the play even says late in the film that "Of course it's crude! Of course it's broad! But people love this play!" (paraphrasing) - why anyone thought any of this was a good idea is above and beyond my pay grade.

so it sounds like Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play (which will soon be a Boots Riley film) but worse