Love echoes through dazzling absurdity

Three subliminal charges land for every direct hit struck by “Echo’s Hammer” at Boston Court. Ken Roht’s daft, dark paean to the impasse between love, creation and survival in our post-millennial madness rides its fabulist course with dazzling staying power.

We enter a great space rendered fantastic by Jason Adams and Alicia Hoge’s set. Upstage hang Frank (Don Oscar Smith) and Cheryl (Geraldine Singer), the voices of lowest common denominator, in futuristic plexiglass cages and Lilly Pulitzer colors. Below, a workshop runs riot with astonishing metalwork and a lantern-bearing silent movie creature. She is Nancy (Kristen-Lee Kelly), the oppressed housekeeper to the unabashed lovers who toil here.

They are invention-driven Pon (author-choreographer-director Roht) and Pon-driven Deedo (Bill Celentano), who function for, by and against each other and Frank and Cheryl’s nihilistic Bickersons. Wandering in and tinkering away is Uncle (Jack Kandel), who sings pidgin Italian and harks back to simpler times. Above everything roams Amazement (Laura Martin), a singing deity who pulls Hindu and Vegas aspects into play. Yet for all its woozy whimsy, “Echo’s Hammer” moves past the Oz-meets-Oceania techniques of past Roht excursions. Taking on the price that techno-commercial existence exacts from relationships, i.e., human progress, “Echo’s Hammer” gradually evolves into an absurdly delightful, yet dangerous, passion play.

Costumer Ann Closs-Farley, lighting designer Brian J. Lilienthal, videographer James Wade Byrkit and composer-sound designer John Ballinger are all invaluable.

The fearless cast is extraordinary, Roht and Celentano the magical teaming in a season teeming with them. At present, only Matthew Bourne’s “Play Without Words” rivals “Echo’s Hammer” for what it delivers: a subversive watershed and a groundbreaking theatrical event.

*

‘Echo’s Hammer’

Where: Boston Court Main Stage,

70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays

Ends: June 4

Price: $30

Contact: (626) 683-6883 or www.bostoncourt.org

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes