Courtesy photo Dan Saad as Theo Maske and Elyse Sinklier as Louise Maske perform in the Ventura College Theatre Department's production of "The Underpants."

It's not hard to imagine why Steve Martin, browsing through theater history, would find Carl Sternheim's 1911 satire a match for both his comic and philosophical bents. "The Knickers" — or, in Martin's adaptation, "The Underpants" — takes a perfectly ridiculous plot point and builds an entire social commentary on it.

In Martin's hands, the laughter is consistently boosted by sly double-entendres and a spirit that uses the absurd to accentuate the ridiculous.

The Ventura College Theatre Department presents the play through Sunday.

In "Underpants," Louise is a young wife whose exuberant attempt to see the Kaiser as he parades in Dusseldorf results in dropping her drawers as she stands on her tiptoes and stretches to wave. She is mortified, but her husband, Theo, is beyond upset. A sturdy bureaucrat, he sees his life's work being snatched away by the news of his wife's indiscretion.

Any hope of keeping things quiet is immediately dispatched when their gossipy neighbor, Gertrude, arrives to tell Louise that all of Dusseldorf knows of her faux pas. Word of mouth in 1911 seems to have preceded the Internet in quick dispersal of bad news.

Soon, men come knocking at their door to inquire about, uh, the room the couple have for rent. First is Versati, a dapper fellow who fancies himself a poet, then Cohen, a nervous barber. What attracted them, of course, was not the room but the landlady, whose misstep has roused their curiosity.

Versati has romance in mind, and Cohen is determined that he will share the divided room with Versati and thus make any intimate byplay between the poet and Louise impossible.

When Versati asks indignantly who Cohen is, he responds, "I, sir, am your prophylactic."

Meanwhile, Gertrude encourages Louise to grasp the chance at romance, especially since Theo seems to be a dud in that department. He's more concerned about getting his sausages sliced for breakfast.

Things play out with pratfalls and a hilarious stream of alpha male righteousness, inflated self-esteem and dismissive babble about women's "place." Ninety-nine percent of the last comes from Theo, who boasts about his job, physical strength, character and sense of what's right or wrong about his world. In the process he makes a fool of himself, with help from Martin's overlay on Sternheim's concept.

Dan Saad plays the oaf at full bore. Elyse Sinklier is lovely Louise, deftly signaling the transformation from wife/serf to her own woman. She seems more 21st-century California woman than timid 1911 Dusseldorf housewife, but is estimable in any case.

James Culbertson is the poetry-spouting Versati, as much in love with himself and his bon mots than with any woman, and Kevin Bass is just right as Cohen. ("That's with a K,'" he nervously insists to Theo. Later, when kosher is mentioned, he hastily adds that's "with a C,'" wrestling with the place of Jews in even turn-of-the-century Germany.)

TJ Mora is the last commoner to come calling about the room for rent as Klinglehoff, the ridiculously battened-down scientist.

One more guest arrives, the Kaiser, played by imposing Drew Davenport. He lauds Theo's service and bestows a promotion on him.

One suspects that in this zany stew, things may be looking up for Louise, too.

Jay Varela directs the play, which is in three acts but played in two opening night, making it a short but quite amusing evening of theater.