THEATER BEAT

Given that Prop. 8, the anti-same-sex marriage ballot measure, is currently under review by the California Supreme Court, an automatic edge accompanies the giddy timeliness of “Lay of the Land,” which ends its Highways run on Saturday. Gay performance artist Tim Miller’s latest foray into purposeful self-examination is in some ways his most important work to date.

Miller’s technique hasn’t essentially changed, just ripened like wine. He still investigates the audience close-up from the outset, invading the aisles with a flashlight. His delivery remains a fusion of half-closed eyes, mercurial inward focus and outwardly pointed insouciance. The rambling commentary, peppered with interjections that trade gloss for spontaneity, enters territory as exhilarating as it is meaningful.

What particularly distinguishes “Land” is the tautly impressive text. The story of Abraham and Isaac forms one point of identification, choking on gristle and a near-tracheotomy by his father another, as Miller lays out his unapologetically renegade viewpoint with exemplary economy and sardonic humor. Marriage equality is the thematic undercurrent against which reminiscences of various activist and performance landmarks coalesce into something larger than the sum of their considerable parts.

Stagecraft is minimal -- a microphone, projections of the 48 contiguous states, delicious childhood pictures, and a clothesline. This comes into indelible play at the climax, where the U.S. and California state flags provide fodder for Miller’s most audaciously effective observations. The resulting tableau and final apotheosis stand high in Miller’s canon, which, together with the overarching relevance, makes “Lay of the Land” a vivid, must-see achievement.

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David C. Nichols --

“Lay of the Land,” Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. 8:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Ends Saturday. $20. (310) 315-1459 or www.highwaysperformance .org. Running time: 1 hour.

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Classic screwball, modern ‘Punch’

Freud said it all comes down to love and work, but didn’t mention what to do when the two collide head-on. That’s the premise of Mark Saltzman’s droll new comedy, “Setup & Punch” -- double entendre intended. Featuring four songs by the Knack’s Berton Averre and keyboardist Rob Meurer, the Blank Theatre Co.’s deft three-hander is a kind of “Will & Grace” meets “The Bad and the Beautiful.”

Performed on a near-bare stage, “Setup” follows the epistolary rapprochement of an estranged songwriting team. The back story: Brian (Andrew Leeds) and Vanya (Hedy Burress) meet at Cornell in a comic zone somewhere between Noel Coward and Encyclopedia Brown. He’s closeted, she likes unavailable men, and that tension fuels a spirited creative partnership. But things get tricky when they’re hired to collaborate with indie rocker Jan (P.J. Griffith), who has an insidious way of exposing ids.

Emmy-winner Saltzman, who wrote the screenplay for the cult favorite “The Adventures of Milo and Otis,” understands the dynamics of the buddy genre, and the evening is at its best in the moment-by-moment badinage between Brian and Vanya. Like well-matched tennis players, they volley ideas with fleet wit. Under Daniel Henning’s punchy direction, Leeds and Burress find every nuance in Saltzman’s jokes; with her mobile face, Burress seems born for screwball. Griffith plays well off the duo’s repression, particularly in a subway scene where Jan undresses Brian for a party.

The show’s few songs haven’t quite found an integral relationship to the script, and the music misses the chance to push the play into something richer and more expressive. The best number follows the saga of two musical theater lovers too shy to hook up, satirizing Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim along the way. (I wanted to hear a cut from the team’s oft-referenced hit show, “Fairy Tale Court.”)

The last third of the play loses its focus, and you wish Saltzman could find a less L.A.-plot turn than a pitch at HBO. The material, clearly autobiographical, might need to move one more step away from its real-life inspiration. Still, “Setup” makes the point that joy can be person-specific. Painfully so. That source of delight may leave your life, but the longing for what he or she brings out in you never does.

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Charlotte Stoudt --

“Setup & Punch” Second Stage Theatre, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. $22-$28. (323) 661-9827. Running time: 90 minutes.

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Funny, that’s not in good taste

A profane and violent odyssey through America’s white-trash psyche, “Rantoul and Die” is a strangely captivating comedy -- a rude belch in the direction of tasteful theater.

Playwright Mark Roberts has created a seething suburban microcosm populated by working-class troglodytes who subsist on beer and soft-serve ice cream from the Dairy Queen. Largely plotless, the play is an anthropological study of bad behavior that treads the border between trailer-park parody and kitchen-sink realism.

Rallis (Rich Hutchman) is a severely depressed middle-age man whose shrewish wife (Cynthia Ettinger) works at the local DQ and repeatedly threatens to leave him. Along for the ride are a nosy neighbor (Paul Dillon), who enjoys putting his friends in headlocks, and a crazy cat lady (Lisa Rothschiller) who also works at the DQ.

“Rantoul” is bursting with gross-out humor and redneck kitsch. At times, you could justifiably accuse the playwright of class condescension and misanthropy. The characters come perilously close to caricature, often serving as little more than mouthpieces for the tennis-match insults that the dramatist has written for them.

The play reaches its sophomoric apex (or nadir, depending on your tastes) in the second half after an act of violence has put one of the characters into a vegetative state.

Roberts is an executive producer of CBS’ “Two and a Half Men” and there’s an undeniable sitcom ambience to his play. Funny lines are delivered in an italicized manner, as if searching for a big laugh. And the characters’ exaggerated idiosyncrasies feel less organic than designed from the outside in.

Still, “Rantoul” has enough mean-spirited humor to satisfy anyone with a subversive streak. Erin Quigley’s direction synthesizes the play’s inherent messiness into a coherent, fast-paced contraption. The costumes and sets deserve special praise for evoking a trashy world where ugliness rules and good taste goes to die.

Best of all is the cast, which tears into the material with canine ferocity. Watching them attack the play is energizing and a little bit disconcerting. Their plunge into the abyss is so complete that by the end, you can only fear for their sanity.

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David Ng --

“Rantoul and Die,” Lillian Theatre, 1078 Lillian Way, Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. $20-$35. (323) 960-4424. Running times: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

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‘Elephant’ able, yet detached

“Sometimes I think my head is so big because it is so full of dreams.” Such lyricism sporadically punctuates the clinical precision of “The Elephant Man.” If this efficient Andak Stage Company revival of Bernard Pomerance’s 1979 Tony winner is more appreciable than rending, it’s certainly not from lack of intelligence.

Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (here renamed John), a severely deformed Victorian cause celebre, “Elephant Man” posits its narrative in restrained theatrical terms. Unlike David Lynch’s 1980 film (not based on the play), Merrick’s disfigurement registers through physical and vocal suggestion rather than makeup or prostheses. This device offers the actor playing Merrick a virtuoso opportunity, with Daniel Reichert in a beautifully understated, subtly calibrated performance.

Abby Craden’s Mrs. Kendal meets him head-on, and their colleagues in the adroit ensemble are agreeable, competently switching personas in Kim DeShazo Wilkinson’s period costumes. Director John DeMita has some smart ideas, such as his use of the reconfigured venue’s entryway and Max Quill’s Harry Potter-esque violinist, and maintains a briskly unsentimental tone.

That proves a liability. Pomerance’s script transpires in detached episodes that derive their punch from the rising cadences and emotional depth of the playing, which here comes and goes. For example, Andrew Matthews as fervent Dr. Treves is proficient, yet his youthfully academic attack doesn’t exactly illuminate the character’s conflicts of transference. Moreover, too many scenes abruptly end before they land, making it easier to admire “Elephant Man” than be consistently moved by it.

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David C. Nichols --

“The Elephant Man,” New Place Studio Theatre, 10950 Peach Grove St., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends June 21. $25. (866) 811-4111. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.