There was excitement in the air as the in-the-know took their seats Monday night for the first installment of “The Cartells,” the Drama Dept.’s new experiment in “live theater soap opera.” Some of it came from the talent involved: a hot writer (Douglas Carter Beane) and a cast of well-known actors. But there was also the fluttery anticipation that comes with live, little-rehearsed entertainment.

By design, “The Cartells” was a high-wire act.The cast members had gotten the script a week earlier and had met with the director, Carl Andress, for the first time on Monday afternoon; a stack of cue cards stood at the ready. And the high-wire act delivered. Naturally, there were bobbles along the way, but the actors’ instantaneous recovery only underscored their talent.

Of course, they got plenty of help from the playwright. Mr. Beane’s 45-minute “pilot” had the rhythms and the adrenaline of sketch comedy, but his soap opera parody was both smarter and more economical than the usual sketch show. “The Cartells” — a sort of valentine to “Dallas” and “Dynasty” with a bracing shot of “The Daily Show” — didn’t just get laughs for being funny. It got laughs for being smart, whimsical, absurd — even self-aware. And although Mr. Beane succumbs to gardenvariety Karl Rove jokes on occasion, he more than redeems himself with unexpected leaps of fancy and his irresistible élan.

The tone is set by Hubris, the Cartell family’s supercilious butler (David Rakoff), who steps onstage and begins reading from his Bible.”It is easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God,” Hubris intones. He pauses, peering down his nose at the crowd. “Episode One,” he announces, “The Eye of a Needle.”

Out comes the oil-loving Cartell clan, brilliantly costumed by Jeriana Hochberg. At his first wife’s funeral, patriarch Craven Cartell (a winningly gullible Peter Frechette) is preparing to marry his second wife, Karma (Alex Gersten-Vassilaros), a trailer park gal with a soft spot for environmental causes.But — drama! — the wedding is interrupted by the shocking reappearance of Titsiana—Craven’s first wife.

No, it’s not a ghost. That’s the very alive, scene-stealing Joanna Gleason whose delicious villainy is made even more piquant by the crackling dryness of her voice as she delivers Mr. Beane’s withering barbs. The spurned, conniving Titsiana vows to rescue the family oil business from the clutches of touchy-feely Karma, who has convinced Craven to shut down the Cartells’ oil pipeline.”I loved that pipeline,” Titsiana says wistfully. “And that is not a double entendre.”

To get the pipeline running again, Titsiana needs the support of her three remaining children (a fourth is presumed lost somewhere in Central America; stay tuned). It’s a cinch to get her rapacious son Cronin (Brian D’Arcy James) onboard, but she encounters resistance from the dim, buxom Gamine (Elizabeth Berkley) and the flamboyant-but-closeted Sterling (Jason Butler Harner).

Like any good prime-time soap writer, Mr. Beane knows his plot exists only to furnish him with bedroom scenes and boardroom brawls, and he serves up a half-dozen terrific ones in “Episode One.”The bedroom encounters, staged with actors standing and holding a bedspread in front of a vertical mattress, are giddy fun, especially when Sterling and his gay lover leap out of bed in strategically pixellated underwear.

Another beloved soap opera device, the arrival of a mystery character, features a hilarious monologue for Skeeter Jo Smugg (the marvelous Kristen Schaal). Skeeter Jo, Karma’s trailer-trash daughter, turns up at the Cartell mansion in a denim mini and midriff-baring top worthy of Daisy Duke.”Don’t you dare laugh at me, you leftist elitist pack of hyenas,” she snarls.”You all feel so bad you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Well, I’m gonna get that silver spoon on my own.And put it in my own mouth.”

The left-leaning “Cartells” series is timed to conclude the Monday before Election Day, and Cartell père bears a certain resemblance to George H.W. Bush. But the Cartells are much more Ewing than Bush — a set of skewered Ewings smarter and more outrageous than most anything on the small screen. People who have been frustrated by the preponderance of safe, tired, stale comedy on network television this fall can be grateful that there are still three more episodes of “The Cartells” on tap.

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In Kathleen Clark’s “Southern Comforts,” a feisty Tennessee widow sweeps into the spartan living room of a New Jersey widower, bringing her optimism, her opinions — and eventually, her furniture — with her. Judith Ivey’s staid production of this uneventful script has a pleasantly mundane feeling, like a soft-lit commercial starring two attractive grandparents. While there may be some realism in Ms. Clark’s low-stakes approach to romance among the senior citizen set, there’s not much drama.

From the moment she walks through Gus’s door on a church errand, it’s clear Amanda (Penny Fuller) is the kind of spirited, independent Southern woman who can soar above whatever obstacles life throws in her path. (In her case, a late husband who was emotionally crippled by his experiences in the war.) Her Greatest Generation pluck is shared by Gus (Larry Keith, a late replacement for an injured William Biff McGuire), who’s survived the war, a frosty marriage, and his wife’s death from cancer.

It’s a startlingly short leap from benign flirtation to marriage, which the two discuss with the dispassionate pragmatism of prospective roommates.After all other matters have been settled, Amanda asks Gus if they’re going to have sex.His flustered reaction — equal parts Puritanism and stoicism — marks one of the few moments in the play when either of these cool customers displays emotion. Mostly they swallow their disagreements — even in what should be their climactic argument, Amanda quickly walks away.

The trouble with “Southern Comforts” is that its two characters feel like shells stocked with histories and habits — not living, breathing people.The oneroom setting does nothing to combat the sitcom blahs that set in. The awkward delays during which the characters change costume and the crew moves furniture around are actually welcome disruptions. Like many aspects of this unpolished production, the scene changes are ragged. But at least they bring a little variety into a monochromatic picture.

“The Cartells” October 23 and 30, and November 6 (353 W. 14th St. at Ninth Avenue, 212-524-2500).

“Southern Comforts” until November 4 (59 E.59th St.,between Park and Madison avenues, 212-279-4200).