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Ubu for President: By Josh Costello, adapted from Alfred Jarry. Directed by Patrick Dooley. With Dave Garrett, Carla Pantoja, Casi Maggio, Sung Min Park, Ryan O'Donnell et al. (Through Sept. 14. Shotgun Players, John Hinkel Park, Berkeley. One hour, 50 minutes. Free. Call (510) 841-6500 or go to www.shotgunplayers.org.)

One candidate is the incumbent, riding roughshod over civil liberties, while another, the title character, is a former warrior vying to out-cheat and out-bully his current boss. Their principal opponent in "Ubu for President" is a community activist rallying the forces of "change," with a universal-love platform and the pan-ethnic name Ming Jamal Joaquin Wounded Knee Goldstein.

Josh Costello, who adapted the script from Alfred Jarry's proto-absurdist "Ubu Roi," and Shotgun Players Artistic Director Patrick Dooley say they've tried to avoid making the 112-year-old "Ubu" a satire on the election in progress. Current events won't cooperate. True, the real-life incumbent Ubu isn't running again, and Dave Garrett's clueless Pa Ubu and Sung Min Park's hilariously New Age-spacey Ming bear little relation to actual candidates named John McCain or Barack Obama. But Costello has inserted some telling parallels, including a comic perennial protest candidate.

Then again, neither he nor Dooley could've predicted that the opening of Shotgun's annual free show in John Hinkel Park would coincide with Paris Hilton's entrance into the race. The party-hearty Princess Power campaign of the self-entitled Princess Buggerless (Casi Maggio) and her killer, pom-pom-wielding posse is a highlight of a ragtag and enjoyable show.

Turning "Ubu" into topical satire is a bit of a stretch. Originally a schoolboy sketch by Jarry and friends, the old cult favorite is more of an adolescent lampoon of authority (especially teachers). Much of that material remains, some of it more frighteningly relevant than ever.

Most of the comically effective electoral material is Costello's addition to Jarry's monarchy-putsch farce. Ubu goes up against the other, mostly new candidates in an attempt to unseat the reigning King Wenceslas (a smooth Gary Grossman, with a delightful Megan Guzman as his martini-fueled queen). Otherwise, most of the carnage and potty-mouth humor is pure Jarry.

In Dooley's staging, it's an engaging romp filled with slapstick, Valera Coble's outrageous costumes, shards of Shakespeare and music director Dave Malloy's raggedly set, comically reworded (by Costello and Garrett) songs, ranging from "Good King Wenceslas" (of course), "Clementine" and "Shenandoah" to "Anchors Aweigh," "America" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The cast comes through with engagingly overstated caricatures (including Carla Pantoja's Ma Ubu) offset by the low-key drollery of Ryan O'Donnell's phallus-armed MacNure (pronounced "manure") and Alf Pollard, who designed the circus-striped set.

It also might have some unintended consequences. Maggio's performance could provide a real boost for the Hilton campaign.

-Robert Hurwitt