The energy at the center of Paul Rudnick's new play about the twin evils of censorship and ambition (we're talking art and politics, of course) is its fervent desire to shock. Rudnick, who wrote the Obie-Award-winning "Jeffrey," has mastered the minefield of homosexuality and a Republican Congress--turning up a gem of a play amidst such well-traveled territory. Though this jouncy, stunningly designed production never quite stoops low enough to outrage, the pace is uptempo and the lines clever enough to jolt even the savviest Village person into a laugh of bemused recognition.

"The Naked Eye" opens with cinematic flair in the downtown loft of Alex Del Flavio (Neil Maffin), a Mapplethorpe-esque photographer with a penchant for flowers, crucifixes and dicks. Seems predictable enough--and still does when Nan Bemiss (Pamela Hart) prances in. The Chanel-clad wife of the aforementioned bigot and Senator Pete Bemiss (Jeremy Geidt) has a "teeny" favor to ask of the, at this point, naked artist. The favor, of course, is that he self-censor a few of his more raw shots for the upcoming gala opening sponsored by the Bemisses.

Though this all seems familiar and a bit dated (the NEA controversy was years ago), Rudnick's dialogue is so snappy and pleasantly consonant it doesn't matter. ("I worship you, I adore you, last Halloween, I was you" crows one of Alex's downtown friends to the bouffanty Mrs. Bemiss.) Director Christopher Ashley uses Derek McLane's sleek, convincing sets--Alex's loft and the Civic Central art museum--to the fullest extent, giving the actors a range of movement and building rhythm through the performance.

Though it's occasionally hard to listen to lines like "It's what you're not supposed to think about" (the penises of Alex del Flavio's art) and "How did gay people get to America?" (as flight attendants), both Maffin and Hart give strong renditions of what are essentially stereotyped parts. Strutting, proclaiming, writhing in what he calls his "flash bulb therapy," Maffin does a good imitation of an attention-starved, shock-happy artist slowly coming to terms with the hypocrisy of selling out. But by the play's end, Hart's consistently contrarian Nan Bemiss wins the audience's attention away from the flashier, impetuous artist with her more grown-up version of betrayal.

From the loft's cavernous elevator emerge some of the play's best performances. Sissy Bemiss Darnley (J. Smith Cameron), Nan's horrid daughter, rages through the studio proclaiming with monosyllabic hillarity--"It's hip, it's hot, it's space, it's art, it's a loft." Marcus (Thomas Derrah) and Katrin Dowling (Francine Torres, Ma Ubu of "Ubu Rock"), a pair of kooky magazine publishers and the token true hipsters of the production, persuade Alex to photograph their daughter Guernica's sixth birthday party.

Though the play raises big issues about permissibility and art, AIDS and politics, ambition and noble suffering--it does not require that the audience take them seriously. In "The Naked Eye," the back-patting that goes on at the highest levels of art and politics between people who would otherwise (and still may) hate each others' guts is simply an opportunity for farce and the mild surprises of that genre.