Buried in the boilerplate of the real-estate contract-cum-program for Washington Ensemble Theatre’s world premiere is a term I had not heard before: “American Terriblism,” there defined as a movement—forged by John Waters and Tim Burton and continued by the likes of Adult Swim’s Eric Wareheim and Tim Heidecker—that mocks the vacuity of the American suburban experience. Indeed, this 90-minute one-act apocalypse comedy by Joshua Conkel—whose Milk Milk Lemonade WET produced in 2011—draws more laughs skewering the dreams and dislikes of characters reared on pizza bagels and room freshener than churning dust storms of sci-fi camp.

Pregnant Shawna (Samie Spring Detzer) and misanthropic Monique (Laura Hanson) are a pair of realtors who’ve organized a book-club meeting at one of their listings: a crappy new spec home in a middle-of-nowhere development. (The tract is rendered bland as flour paste by set designers Pete Rush and Christopher Mumaw in WET’s first production in the new 12th Avenue Arts building.) Guests converge in amusing vignettes: Elaine (Marc Kenison, aka “boy-lesque” dancer Waxie Moon), the mayor’s condescending wife, prone to preening her hair into a planetary nimbus; a gay couple, both halves of whom are named William (Justin Huertas and Ben McFadden); and friends Heather (Jessie Underhill) and Bibi (Leah Salcido Pfenning). Except for Shawna, all are drawn by the social occasion—not the aspirational-pablum featured book, Whisper to the Stars. Director Ali el-Gasseir paces the comedy perfectly, with a light, nuanced hand. Cute touches like Bibi’s bookshelf-motif blouse—thanks to costumer Alirose Panzarella—snap us into the weird fairy-tale reality of the play’s world.

However, my interest waned as occult phenomena overtook Conkel’s amusingly drawn characters. The book-club members are stung by soul-infiltrating insectoids, then gradually become insectoids themselves—who are far less interesting than the people they started out as. Strobe lights, swampy gases, vomiting, alien voices, seizures . . . pretty much the full warehouse of horror-genre misfortunes gets trundled out. But even while the plagues rain down, regular old situational comedy works better for Conkel. (One of the Williams wants a baby, tries to steal Shawna’s minutes-old spawn, but forgets to cut the umbilical cord. Boing! Splat! The Three Stooges would approve.)

The cast’s all-in verve and character honing temporarily plugs many a logic hole in this enjoyably inane doomsday scenario. Nonetheless, like a tangle of cul-de-sacs, the play itself doesn’t really go anywhere.

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