BASEL—There was so much hype surrounding “Il Tempo del Postino,” the group-exhibition-as-theatrical-event first staged at the Manchester International Festival two years ago and having its second iteration at the Theater Basel (referred to in its accompanying pamphlet in hyperbolic Christological terms as “the second coming of a unique exhibition”), that one felt inclined to dislike it, even though disliking it, given all that favorable advance hype, would seem tantamount to a crime against humanity. Luckily for everyone, then, the thing was spectacularly good in some parts, just plain good in others.

“Postino” is the brainchild of ubiquitous curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and his frequent collaborator, artist Philippe Parreno. Together, they hatched the bold plan of conceiving a group show as a time-based event. (In other words, rather than a bit of wall or floor space, each artist is given a bit of time; the show takes its title from Parreno’s 1992 essay “Postman’s Time,” which complains about the paltry few seconds most people devote to looking at artworks.) For “Postino”’s showing in Basel, the two original organizers were joined by artists Anri Sala and Rirkrit Tiravanija.

There were old standards from the Manchester showing. One of them was Olafur Eliasson’s rousing segment, wherein a mirror descends in front of the stage and the audience, gazing at itself, proceeds to give auditory instructions to the orchestra in the pit. (Laughter, catcalls, even the blurted phrase “Art Basel” were mimicked with impressive accuracy by the musicians.) Another hit from Manchester was Doug Aitken’s auctioneers, who performed something akin to a Texas livestock auction while perambulating around the theater, their voices eventually rising in a crescendo. (Given the now drowsy art market, and the fact that this was taking place on the occasion of an art fair, there was something elegiac about Aitken’s auctioneers.) And then there was Arto Lindsay’s mock dinner party, in which the curtain rises on a stage set with a library and a long table, where “guests” — recruited from the audience — are seated and proceed to engage in lively conversation as Lindsay stands nearby, playing electric guitar. Seated at the head of the table was the redoubtable Sir Norman Rosenthal, former Royal Academy exhibitions secretary, who blurted out, in the performance’s climax, “I’ve forgotten my lines and I don’t know what I’m doing here!”

For Basel, a few of the original “Postino” artists substantially altered their submissions, most notably Matthew Barney, whose Guardian of the Veil, an elaborate multi-player performance involving a busted up car and a live bull, stole the show in Manchester but who, in Basel, chose to present a musical event, complete with lively conductor and an exuberant troupe of drummers, in the theater’s lobby just prior to intermission. And there were two new additions to the roster in Basel, one from Fischli & Weiss (a piece in which performers costumed as the artists’ alter egos, a rat and a bear, sit stage-side, deep in silent conversation), and the other from Thomas Demand (a video of rain hitting pavement).

One last thing must be said about “Postino,” which is that it knows how to make an exit. The last piece was one by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, in which, as the orchestra plays a Mozart standard, members begin to exit the pit. Finally all that remained was the cello; even the conductor had split.

“Postino” was a hit in Basel, and served as an antidote to art-fair-booth blahs. As the audience made its halting way out into the rainy night, the event got props from the doyenne of performance herself, RoseLee Goldberg, the force behind New York’s Performa biennial. “It was wonderful,” she said. “I enjoyed every minute.”