The subtitle for “screwmachine/eyecandy,” C.J. Hopkins’s angry new comedy at 59E59, is “How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Big Bob.” This is the second show in the last few months (the first was “Major Bang”) to borrow the phrase made famous by “Dr. Strangelove” – and the way things are going, it won’t be the last.

“Screwmachine/eyecandy” deals less with apocalyptic paranoia and more with the blind passivity of a press obsessed America, but it still relies heavily on our nostalgia for 1960s satire. And while Mr. Hopkins’s play could have easily been written 40 years ago, it’s hardly his fault that Americans did not heed earlier wakeup calls. But despite a flawless cast and whip-crack delivery, “screwmachine” scores too many of its points off straw targets (Republicans are funny!). Had Mr. Hopkins focused the mirror on his audience more accurately, his dark comedy could have acted as a burning lens.

On a creepy, expressionist gameshow set, Big Bob (David Calvitto) welcomes the Browns (Bill Coelius and Nancy Walsh), two wide-eyed, married Fox television fans, to his show. Will they be playing with supersize poker chips? Or spinning a giant wheel? They can’t wait to find out – though Big Bob seems strangely unwilling to tell them.

At least they can all agree that money will be won. It spills out of Big Bob’s pockets, and he distributes it when his contestants either tell him the capital of Iowa or say nasty things about each other – vitriol is worth cash money. Most important, Big Bob wants them to conform. His questions grow ever more perverse, but they can’t refuse to answer. Even after a frightening Vanna White-type (if Ms. White were a linebacker in drag) begins beating the couple, they respond with knee-jerk obedience. Until the end, they would rather plea for fairness than flee – but as Big Bob reminds them, there is no “fair” in laissez-faire.

Director John Clancy keeps Mr. Calvitto laying down his lines like strafing fire – of course the poor, pedantic Browns race along three steps behind him. Mr. Clancy also knows just when to slow the pace from screwball mania to grim, clomping dread. Even with Bob screaming at him, the adorable Mr. Coelius suffers in real time, leaving Ms. Walsh behind as Bob’s dim and desperate foil.

Poor Bob seems desperate for a target who is worthy of him, and yet his megalomania outpaces his victim’s intellect every time. Here is where the production suffers from having such a low opinion of us all. Mr. Hopkins’s allegory for America may put the government in the bully’s seat, but he seems all too willing to take a swing at the American public himself.

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But those of us who wear khakis without irony haven’t gotten the full brunt of theatrical disapproval quite yet. Down at P.S. 122, Taylor Mac’s glitter-filled extravaganza of hulahooping Jesus figures, Lynn Cheney putdowns, and wildly flailing genitalia puts “screwmachine” in the shade when it comes to making the squares wince. For those in Mr. Mac’s in crowd (you’ll know who you are), “Red Tide Blooming” will be an excellent chance to whoop and holler. But for everyone else, the experience is like crashing a party where you don’t know anyone, and you’re leery of the punch.

Mr. Mac plays Olokun, a “hermaphrodite sea creature” growing up out of place in suburbia. Painted green from head to foot, with the ah, family anemones taped up and out of view, the completely naked Mr. Mac dithers about his outsider status. Once driven out by a demonic housewife (Miss Bianca Leigh), he goes in search of a community of freaks with whom to form a family. Hello, East Village! But it’s the East Village of the future, or, rather, a thinly disguised critique of the current downtown, and so all the bona fide freaks have been replaced by poser “cool kids.”

The numbers go on for days here, and the intermissionless fantasia seems as excruciating as that strategically placed duct tape. By the time Mr. Mac gets out his ukulele for the finale, algae blooms will seem like the least of Coney Island’s problems.

“Screwmachine/eyecandy” until April 30 (59 E. 59th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues, 212-279-4200).

“Red Tide Blooming” until April 23 (150 First Avenue at 9th Street, 212-352-3101).