By Jackie Demaline
Enquirer staff writer

IF YOU GO

What: Power Failure When: 8 p.m. today-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Sept. 26 Where: New Edgecliff Theatre, Columbia Performance Center, 3900 Eastern Ave., Columbia Tusculum Tickets: $16, $12 students and seniors; (888) 588-0137 or www.newedgecliff.com

Though it was inspired by another election and a different Gulf War, Power Failure fits right alongside today's headlines.The scathing political satire by Larry Gelbart, known for his Emmy-winning TV hit M*A*S*H, opens Wednesday in a performance by the New Edgecliff Theatre, at the Columbia Performance Center in Columbia Tusculum. Gelbart became a comedy writing legend early in his career as one of the writers for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, which still impresses comedy fans a half-century later.

The author of work from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum to Mastergate is "absolutely non-partisan" here, says Elizabeth Harris. The theater's new associate artistic director wanted to make her New Edgecliff directing debut with "a strong statement that says everyone needs to start caring about what's happening," no matter what their answer may be.

The biting comedy, written in the aftermath of the Gulf War and immediately before the 1992 presidential election, is about corruption of power. The structure is a daisy chain of two-character scenes in which one character moves on to the next vignette.

It all starts with Josh Beshears and Aretta Baumgartner as a convict and an author writing a book about him. Other popular players on the semi-pro theater circuit include Bob Allen (new artistic director of Clear Stage Cincinnati) as an Army general, Jeff Groh as a priest, Christine Dye as a congresswoman and Chris Kramer as a defense contractor.

What's fun, says Harris, is the way Gelbart examines what tools people use to establish power over one another - sexuality, intellect, emotion - and how that power shifts as the combinations of characters change.

The point, she says, is "The voter has the power to break any cycle. Each individual has the choice by being active in their community and participating in the political system."

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com