MILKING IT SHEPARD'S ANSWER TO IRAQ MIXES MADNESS, MIDWEST IN `GOD OF HELL'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

Matters start off routinely enough. A Wisconsin dairy farmer named Frank -- a man of few words -- stares at a rickety TV set and prepares to feed his cherished heifers. His chirpy wife, Emma, circles 'round the homestead, watering the houseplants. It's the dead of winter, y'see, and this being the hinterlands, Emma needs something to do.

As it happens, the usual patterns have already been broken. A newcomer, Haynes, is in the basement, a friend of Frank's with unsettling ties to the U.S. government. Hot on his trail is another government type, a cheerfully demonic functionary named Welch bearing an attache case full of torture devices, patriotic cookies and -- most significantly -- row upon row of American flags.

Cue our National Anthem. Four versions. Our entertainment is titled ``The God of Hell,'' a reference to plutonium. Did I mention that Haynes, the one not carrying the flags, is radioactive?

The unusual thing here is not that Sam Shepard, rural bard of the absurd, had a political farce within him; only that he had this political farce waiting to break free. ``The God of Hell,'' is the playwright's dramatic reply to the Iraq invasion, and one suspects he dashed it off in a single outraged evening.

To tackle a work this in your face and unsubtle, the Geffen Playhouse has assigned Jason Alexander (``Seinfeld's'' George Costanza) who has elected to match Shepard's outraged bombast stripe for stripe.

Zaniness? The 90-minute display at the Geffen Playhouse is designed to get under peoples' skin and to provoke laughter -- topical whoopee cushion yuks. Offstage heifers moo on cue whenever someone refers to them. Pyrotechnic effects involving radioactive jolts (and of which Alexander's cast appears to be justifiably terrified) are an early bit of July 4 pageantry. Who needs handheld sparklers when you can make someone's crotch light up like an Independence Day pinwheel? (Jason H. Thompson is the production's lighting designer.)

And Bryan Cranston (``Malcolm in the Middle''), who plays the patriotism-driven Welch, somewhat resembles the elder George Bush (when he smiles) and appears to be channeling Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura mode. It's as though the character took a left turn at Brecht and ended up in Shepard terrain.

The broad strokes and special effects carom rather clumsily off the bits of alienation and twisted family dynamics that the playwright (``True West,'' ``Buried Child'') usually traffics in.

Presented with the vaguest trace of a typical Shepard landscape, Alexander has elected to go for the political gusto. Accordingly we find ourselves having a belly laugh at the expense of these yokels -- and at our country's sickness as the playwright sees it -- not pitying them. And in truth, both the laughs and the disgust are too easy.

Sarah Knowlton, sporting an assortment of housedresses and a Minnesota accent, comes the closest to breaking free and delivering a non-stereotyped character. Homebody Emma is a bit of a sketch, but this is the character through whose eyes we witness the horror.

As farmer Frank, Bill Fagerbakke (``Coach'') is convincingly a man of the land and, later, a convert to an ugly cause. Curtis Armstrong does more than effective work as the doomed friend Haynes. The man looks suitably beaten down, and his face goes beet red whenever he's called upon to get angry or terrified.

Not having seen ``The God of Hell'' without the cartoon trappings (there have been only two previous productions), I have no sense of how the thematic urgency plays in a different context. Alexander, Cranston and the rest of the cast may even sense the ``God of Hell's'' timely shelf life ticking away and, accordingly, are playing this lunacy for every ounce of hysteria it's worth.

Well and good. Whatever else it is, this ``God of Hell'' is never boring.

Evan Henerson [phone]

[e-mail]

THE GOD OF HELL - Two and one half stars

Where: Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 4 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through July 30.

Tickets: $35 to $69. [phone]. www.GeffenPlayhouse.com.

In a nutshell: Simultaneously overblown and humorous. Shepard gets mad. Director Jason Alexander's production gets loony.

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Bill Fagerbakke and Sarah Knowlton are a farm couple who find themselves in the midst of some strange U.S. government activity -- and yes, you're supposed to be thinking about Iraq -- in ``The God of Hell.''