At the Friday night performance of Woolly Mammoth Theater’s production of Get Your War On, the audience found just about every moment of the work uproariously funny. Was it because the lines were genuinely clever? Was it because they agreed so wholeheartedly with the author’s liberal stance? Was it a much-needed release after enduring years upon years of injustice from the Bush administration? It’s hard to say, but it begs the question whether the play would receive the same reaction from a demographically different crowd.

Welcome to the contentious world of overtly political theater, where preaching to the choir is common, and often therapeutic, but those on the opposing side of the political spectrum are left far less impressed. Get Your War On, where the political does not stay comfortably in the realm of undertones, fits easily into this category: Bush-bashers will be thrilled. The Christian Right will be alienated. The apolitical theatergoer will fall somewhere in-between.

The work is a stage adaption of the comic strip of the same name, by David Rees, which has been featured for years in Rolling Stone magazine. The endeavor is both an inspired idea and a well-executed one – the comic strip’s lines lend themself far better to sarcastic or emotive readings than they do to the page (“Who has time to declare war when so many bombs are being dropped?” for example, doesn’t read as the most subtle of statements, but these actors can lend the necessary weight or lightness to prevent it from falling flat). During the show, we are taken through six years of war-driven events that have plagued the U.S. (as well as the corresponding comic strips that commented on them), and the quick-witted ironic detachment of the lines moves the show along at first at a satisfying pace, though around the time 2004 rolls around, you may find yourself hoping for a little more variety in the script.