`SLAVA' DOES A MAJOR SNOW JOB ON ITS AUDIENCE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

Feeling a little drab, a bit steamed at life? Traffic and crazed shoppers got you down? Then come on down to UCLA and embrace your inner anarchist. The clowns of ``Slava's Snowshow'' have the cure for what ails you. Or at least the outlet.

That's right, I said clowns, and with master Slava Polunin leading the charge, they're packing some serious mischief. Playful probably isn't the correct terminology for the wintry spectacle going down nightly (and sometimes daily) at Royce Hall.

Unless, that is, you find lightheartedness in adults going ape over a roomful of flying balls. (That's ``Snowshow's'' finale. We'll come back to it presently.)

Polunin is the one in the saggy yellow jumpsuit with the frizzy side- tufts of hair, red nose (floppy shoes to match) and the face paint creating a shadow that looks closer to 8 than to 5 o'clock. His posse has six or seven performers, each clad in green. Similarly painted, the clown aides are of all heights, and they wear hats with long ear flaps that stick out like airplane wings. All of the company members have the ability to increase and shrink their respective heights within their suits. A useful skill, no doubt.

And they've got mayhem on their minds. Apart from periodically horning in on Polunin's action, the green clowns on opening night brought the intermission to a rousing end by climbing into and over the audience and enlisting patrons to gather other patrons' coats and purses. They then opened a bunch of ratty umbrellas, impaled several water bottles and got everybody wet.

Having fun yet? It should also be mentioned that the music and sound effects (designed by Rastyam Dubinnikov) are often ratcheted up to rather extreme levels. ``Slava's Snowshow,'' while whimsical and at times quite brilliant, is not a show for the passive or for young children who are easily spooked.

Polunin's troupe pulls off some breathtaking effects with flying spheres that float -- soap-bubble-like -- in midair. During this sequence, the entire action seems to regress into slow motion. In another interlude, Polunin and a green clown sail a ship across the clouds into a celestial ocean. Our yellow clown protagonist ventures off stage and emerges, shot through with arrows, entitling him to an operatic death scene.

The yellow clown persona (the program credits two other performers beside Polunin capable of enacting him) is a creature of curiosity and sadness who also has bursts of anger. Witness Polunin engaging in a comically unintelligible back-and-forth telephone conversation or discovering a sheet of cobwebs that ends up getting stretched from the stage halfway over the audience.

Snow is promised -- and delivered. Polunin has set his action in a celestial winterscape. Flurries sprinkle in throughout the 100-minute show, but -- as the paper ground cover in the auditorium portends -- a storm is on the way. Make that a blizzard, and when it arrives, it knocks the clowns off their feet and nearly blinds the audience. Then out come the balls, which get batted (and strategically avoided) as some of us try to head for the exit. Remember that bottled-up aggression I referenced earlier?

Now would be the time to let it out.

Polunin has been quoted as saying these balls are the size of planets, and he's not far off. That snow and those spheres make for a cracked conclusion to a most unusual evening.

Evan Henerson [phone]

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SLAVA'S SNOWSHOW - Three stars

Where: Royce Hall, UCLA, Westwood.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Some weekday matinees, call for specific show dates. Through Jan. 7.

Tickets: $42 to $68. [phone]. www.UCLAlive.org.

In a nutshell: The mystical and sometimes dangerous art of clowning. Do not try this at home.