Outraged by the Bush administration, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, etc., Sam Shepard hastily composed this absurdist and somewhat awkward farce in 2004. A dozen years later, though we’re out of Iraq, ongoing drones strikes, Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations, and, most recently, the Chicago police’s “black sites” discovery make the agitprop less outlandish—though no more captivating.

In a plot combining elements from FOX News and Star Trek, the uncomplicated existence of Wisconsin dairy farmers Frank (Edwin Scheibner) and Emma is upended when they host Mr. Haynes (Keith Dahlgren), a presumed scientist on the run from a secret U.S. plutonium project. In pursuit, masquerading as a door-to-door salesman hawking patriotic products, the government henchman Welch (Gianni Truzzi, an erstwhile SW contributor) comes knocking. From there we are taken on a rugged route reconnoitering torture, politics, and democracy.

Please note, Maureen Miko normally plays Emma; however, due to a medical emergency, director Joanna Goff Sunde subbed for her—still on book—with commendable commitment in the performance I saw. Still, the problem here isn’t the acting, but the direction and choice of material. Truzzi’s disturbing character is a Brechtian clown, yet he fails to dispel any illusions of theater or politics. The production needs to be more cartoonish, to amp up the effects. After any physical contact, Haynes supposedly suffers from “static electricity” and lightning bolts flashing from his appendages. All we see is what we hear: a disappointing game-show-esque buzzer. Even allowing for the low budget, Sunde’s pacing makes Rand Paul’s anti-drone filibuster seem brief.

Near the end, long after Verfremdungseffekt has morphed into unmitigated indifference, Frank’s monologue mourns the loss of a less bellicose America. “I miss the Cold War,” he says sincerely. It’s a nostalgic, hackneyed notion to anyone actually raised during the terrifying era of Mutually Assured Destruction. Yet Shepard came of age protesting the Vietnam War. Every epoch has its atrocities and political rationales to ridicule, as the playwright (and theatergoer) knows. Why doesn’t his God of Hell raise my hackles in the year 2015? Perhaps because it does not incite the intended ire; and, damn it, I wanted to be outraged—not bored by more partisan sniping.

stage@seattleweekly.com

THE GOD OF HELL Stone Soup Theatre, 4029 Stone Way N., 633-1883, stonesouptheatre.org. $15–$25. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat. plus 4 p.m. Sun., March 8. Ends March 14.