Space 55 Theatre Ensemble, which flashed onto my radar screen with their hilariously earnest ultra-liberal dance concert America First: Made in Hong Kong is moving into the more traditional realm of underground/alternative theatre by producing the script LBJFKKK, originally written by the of Chicago. Where there was something immediate and homegrown in their prior production, LBJFKKK is a timeless oddball of a script, characterizing American neighborhoods as full of creepy whackjobs, colorful drifters, and the culturally dispossessed. It’s funny insofar as watching marginalized characters bump into, grasp onto, and claw each other is entertaining. The details are quirky even as the structure into which these oddities are dropped feels rather formulaic.

Jack (Bob Fisher) is a terminally creepy overly-neighborly type who has appointed himself the head of the nebulous Neighborhood Watch. With his curiously absent wife, his ebullient attitude, and his aggressive laugh, he becomes the head of everything through his aggressive style. He has made it his unofficial job to become a father to town orphan Sonny (Eric Zaklukiewicz), the unmotivated high school grad who wants nothing more than to make a happy living working with animals and drink at the tire lot with town lush, poet, and philosopher Martin (Steve Wilcox). Martin is the center of Jack’s ire; just as the nearly agoraphobic Sylvia (Shawna Franks) is the object of Jack’s shuddersome lust. As Jack takes over, the others scramble to fight his fascist power-grabbing.

This type of script trades on the actors’ ability to make their over-the-top charges either begrudgingly loveable or horrifically slimy. The cast does this consistently and well. Fisher, one of the original co-writers from Cardiff Giant, is a teeth-setting villain with permaplastic hair and the voice of Bob Barker’s evil twin. In one sequence later in the play, he gives us a disquietingly funny look into Jack’s motivations. Wilcox is a sweetly daft drunk who could be a kinder, gentler Christopher Lloyd. Franks is dead on with Sylvia’s many physical ticks and her wavering voice betraying a woman clutching the fraying fabric of her reality. Her portrayal is heartbreakingly tender and edgy. Zaklukiewicz portrays Sonny as a somewhat lesser than Everyman with little ambition, which is exactly what he should be, but which textually makes him a bit annoying and not as easy a target for empathy when surrounded by the other three enormous personalities.

The group does a strong job of playing the quirks of this altered reality and drawing humor from absurdity, though there’s something that makes this evening somewhat unengaging and even a bit offputting. Franks mentions in her bio her role in creating another script in this vein, Killer Joe, a play I saw several years ago in New York, and I sense a distinct relationship between the two. There is little social commentary here and few deep messages: while it offers pretenses about exploring power and hints at a deeper meaning with its cryptic title, this play is really about laughing at the nutcases in their suburban cage. Insofar as freak shows are enjoyable, so is LBJFKKK. This is much cleverer than JoJo the Dogfaced Boy and The Mustachioed Woman, but it is born of the same tradition.