STAGE REVIEW : Camelot-Gone-Mad in ‘House of Yes’ : Drama: Wendy MacLeod’s satire attempts to deconstruct the crumbling nuclear family. She comes close, but not close enough.

How can you say no to “The House of Yes”?

It is funny, grotesque, impudent, a little chilling and streaked with satire--all elements that recommend it. But the Wendy MacLeod play that opened Tuesday at the Las Palmas Theatre in Hollywood (the perfect house in the perfect spot) is also tamer than expected, more struck with lunacy than danger. Perhaps instead of yes, one should say maybe.

This San Francisco transplant that comes to us intact from the Magic Theatre has the characteristics of a good thriller seen through a distorting prism. The vision is just skewed enough to keep you wondering about and laughing at the peculiar members of the Pascal family of McLean, Va., an unabashedly self-centered lot stricken with Kennedy envy, a fondness for guns and an immense dislike for one another.

In all cases but one.

That one involves Marty (Art Manke) and Jackie-O. (Celia Shuman), the twins whose incestuous relationship will prove disastrous to their health. Jackie-O. is a certified loony with a history of mental disorder who adopted the name when she dressed as Jackie Onassis for a costume party.

Marty is a handsome devil who defies Jackie-O.’s instability and obsession with him by returning to the family fold with a young woman at his side. Her name is Lesly (Susan Brecht), a refreshingly sane girl he found working at Donut King to whom, as Marty announces to all, he is engaged.

Not only is nutsy Jackie-O. incensed by this development, but so is their mother. Flinty, filmily clad Mrs. Pascal (Nancy Shelby), who has the tenderness of cut glass, would love to see this Lesly disappear. Only the playful puppy in the family, younger brother Anthony (Kenneth R. Merckx Jr.), has benign emotions. He falls for the attractive doughnut-maker in a direct, no-nonsense way.

Clearly, the stage is set for something combustible. When the curtain goes up we’re in the middle of a hurricane. When it comes down we’re in the middle of a murder. During the ranting in between are many caustic, ironic and even savage exchanges (“I think this belonged to a Kennedy.”--”Why? Is there a bullet hole in it?”), but also silly ones (“Would you like a glass of Liebfraumilch?”--”No, I’ll just have a glass of wine.”).

Author MacLeod calls her play “a suburban Jacobean tragedy” with plenty of justification. Its tainted tone is reminiscent of John Bunzel’s “Death of a Buick” or Darrah Cloud’s “The House Across the Street,” wherein another unsavory family peers through the front windows of its house at the aftermath of a mass murder across the way. MacLeod is angling for the same kind of deconstruction of the crumbling nuclear family.

She succeeds to a degree, but the play doesn’t go far enough. It is more poisonous than her very funny “Apocalyptic Butterflies” seen at the Magic a few years ago, but stops short of serious and more devastating dissection.

The symbolism is fairly obvious: a fascination with the Kennedys that is emblematic of lost leadership and lost ideals (the twins’ sexual fantasies revolve around re-enactments of the murder of John Kennedy), resulting in the amoral excesses of a family that has broken away from its moorings. Hence the title, “House of Yes.” As MacLeod told an interviewer, “It seemed perfect for a house of immorality. No one has ever said ‘No’ to these people.”

This is a very San Francisco play, characterized by a healthy noncommerciality that may have a hard time surviving in the hothouse Hollywood jungle.

However, Jeff Rowlings has supplied an aptly off-center neo-naturalistic set and director Andrew Doe has extracted all the henbane to be had from a script which he moves swiftly along to its explosive climax. The actors, too, offer seasoned performances, but the script is so loaded with anomalous behavior that it makes transitions stilted and tortuous at best.

A price is paid in the end. So MacLeod’s play ends on a moral note and it cannot be entirely coincidental that this family’s last name points to the sacrificial Passover lamb. The lingering tragedy: On what altar are they being sacrificed and why?

At 1642 N. Las Palmas, Hollywood, Tuesdays through Thursdays, 8 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 7 and 10 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Indefinitely. $20-$23; (213) 410-1062, (714) 634-1300.