THEATER REVIEW / ‘THE PEOPLE VS. THE RANCHMAN’ : Timely Topic : Surrealism surrounds this one-act production that tackles the issue of capital punishment.

Trials are an incontestably hot issue in Ventura County, and the murderer Robert Alton Harris recently became the first murderer executed in California since 1967.

With that in mind, the latest installment in Plaza Players’ Theater Lab program, Megan Terry’s fiery one-act “The People vs. the Ranchman”--first produced in 1968--could hardly be more topical.

The Ranchman is a Mansonlike figure, long-haired and fire-eyed, who is accused of rape--or to quote the prosecutor: “crimes against the orifices of four or more separate citizens,” including two men, a boy and a girl. We conclude from his actions and words that the Ranchman is probably insane. But is he guilty as charged? And if he is guilty, should the state deprive him of his own life?

That’s a lot of material to cover in a one-act play, particularly with the surrealistic overtones provided by playwright Terry. Still, director Ted Vaca and his cast of 16 make the most of Terry’s script, which opens outside the theater before the performance begins. A crew of hippies and solid citizens roam through the Old Livery courtyard, protesting and hailing the Ranchman’s execution.

The play itself finds the Ranchman confronted by his victims (or are they? He says he’s innocent), one by one.

A little more than an hour of undiluted polemic, “The People vs. the Ranchman” is surprisingly rich in ideas. Some might say, with some justification, that it is unnecessarily muddled and confusing. In either case, seldom was the Theater Lab’s customary post-play discussion more appropriate.

(At Saturday’s opening, the audience was seemingly stacked with friends of the cast more interested in congratulating the players than in any serious exchange of ideas. With luck, this should change--particularly if more people who favor capital punishment show up).

Steve Aguilar is properly spooky as the Ranchman. And alleged victims Holly Tenders, Doreen Dekkers, Paula Maxwell and Brandon Snow acquit themselves (if not the Ranchman) well. Phil Taggart plays the prosecutor, Richard Goad is the judge, and Randy Haws appears as an unauthentically ponytailed bailiff.

Terry’s antagonists and protagonists seem equally cartoonish, but no more so than those taking sides during an hour of talk radio. Capital punishment is, after all, an issue that’s at least as charged with emotion as it is with logic.

Melissa Fair, who has contributed to a number of Plaza Players productions, has supplied some effective choreography to a dream sequence.

An interesting touch is the rhythmic, chant-like speech that Vaca has his actors use. It definitely adds to the show’s out-of-this-Earth quality, though at times the play comes precariously close to sounding like “The Music Man.”

* WHERE AND WHEN

“The People vs. the Ranchman” continues weekends through June 7 at the Plaza Players Theater, 34 N. Palm St. in Ventura. Performances are 2 p.m. Saturdays and 7 p.m. Sundays only. All tickets are $5. For further information, call 643-9460.