THEATER / M. E. WARREN : ‘Better Days’ Elicits Bitter Laughs : An unconventional holiday selection for Way Off Broadway, it is a pitch-black comedy that mines the comic extremities of survival.

Way Off Broadway is offering a truly unconventional holiday play selection. Richard Dresser’s “Better Days” is a pitch-black comedy in which things go from very bad to decidedly worse for the citizens of a mythical New England town.

It is winter, and the economy is as dead as a frozen stiff. Ray (Steve Eazell), a laid-off factory worker, and his wife, Faye (Laura Spurlock), are barely scraping by, eating leftovers from the plates of patrons of the Hungry Pilgrim Restaurant, where Faye has gotten a job as a waitress.

Outside, packs of vicious dogs roam the streets. Inside, Ray and Faye are burning the furniture to keep warm. But there is hope. One night, while climbing around on the roof, Ray heard a voice that promised him the factory would reopen.

So as Faye sets out to sell the TV, the car and possibly a little something else on the side, Ray and his buddies Arnie and Phil (Brady Hicks and Kevin Hayden) convene to worship the voice and its promise of better things to come.

The plot thickens like a sooty crust on old snow. Faye returns with an entrepreneur named Bill (Steve McCammon) who has some jobs he needs done. They’re dirty jobs, they’re dangerous jobs, they’re illegal jobs, but they’re jobs. And between Bill’s smooth, Pinteresque persuasiveness and the alternative prospect of selling Amway at gunpoint, Ray joins up.

Dresser’s sardonically humorous script mines the desperate situation for the comic extremities of survival. Faye carries a box of dog biscuits with her when she goes out. Phil, who’s living in his car with his girlfriend, Crystal (Valerie Ludwig), has a five-year plan that aims at living indoors.

The Way Off Broadway production, directed by Tony Reverditto, nails the big jokes and succeeds unconditionally in creating the ambience of desperation. David Carleen’s set fills WOB’s quirky performance space very effectively, evoking a familiar dreariness that actually feels cold under Carleen’s inventive lighting design.

The rhythms of the performance are jerky. There’s way too much dead air between lines, and there are many layers to Dresser’s twisted tale that are not in play at WOB. Nonetheless, “Better Days” dishes up plenty of laughs, and a good deal of unusually seasoned food for thought, particularly for those of us who were witnesses to the “civil unrest” of last spring.

‘Better Days’

A Way Off Broadway production of the play by Richard Dresser, directed by Tony Reverditto. Set and lighting design by David Carleen. With Steve Eazell, Brady Hicks, Laura Spurlock, Kevin Hayden, Valerie Ludwig and Steve McCammon. Continues Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. through Jan. 23, with a matinee Jan. 24 at 2, at Way Off Broadway, 1058 E. 1st St., Santa Ana. Tickets: $15 ($12.50 for students and/or patrons who donate a can of food). Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes, with one intermission. Box office: (714) 547-8997.