When European theater professionals take potshots at their American counterparts, they generally aim for the brain. Or the lack thereof. The rap on U.S. plays and players is that they are intellectually shallow. Ingenious plots, vivid characters, sparkling dialogue, stylistic innovation, technical wizardry, fine -- but where are ?

Well, a lot of ideas are on offer in "On the Open Road," by Steve Tesich. ReAct is staging this intermittently witty absurdist drama.

Some of those ideas: cultural criticism, intellectual acrobatics, even theological speculation. The question "When is it the Christian thing to do to kill Christ?" comes up. Less subtle is the question "Would you rather kill Christ than be killed yourself?" More abstract is the question "What is the connection, if any, between culture and civilization, art and compassion?"

The ReAct show is a lively version of a lecture on "values philosophy," that is, ethics and esthetics: "What is virtuous? What is beautiful? And why?" Even an imaginative lecture on these topics, with lively visual aids and comedy team dialogue, is not altogether satisfactory as art or entertainment. "On the Open Road" has dry and dusty stretches.

But the production is pretty impressive. Director Alan Craig DiBona bats the philosophizing around with a touch of Laurel and Hardy here, a smidgen of Cheech and Chong there. Set designer John McDermott creates a landscape that is more clotted with rubble and trash than the setting for "Cats." His design is grayer and bleaker than any "Waiting for Godot" wasteland. Costume designer Craig Labenz fits out major and minor characters with tatters that make the folks in Kosovo film clips look, by comparison, fastidiously well groomed.

Angel, a retired boxer, was about to be hanged. Then his tormentors fled. Al comes along, pulling a battered cart in which priceless art treasures are stacked. Al offers to save Angel if he will pull the cart. So off they go. On the road, Angel wants friendship. Al wants intellectual stimulation. Angel badgers Al for emotional intimacy. Al catechizes Angel about cultural history. Together they are headed out of incessant civil war and into "the land of the free." Or so they hope.

David A. Lewis as Al radiates bitterness, cynicism and disillusionment. All he knows is that art is greater than life. But maybe art can be used to buy life. Maybe it can be used as an inducement to let these traumatized refugees into "the land of the free."

Paul Ray, as Angel, offers the obvious contrast to Al. Lewis is slight. Ray is stocky. Ray portrays Angel as bright but ignorant. He picks up facts quickly. But he lags behind when it comes to perfecting his amoral ruthlessness.

Along the way, Al and Angel meet Jesus Christ. He is playing a Bach sonata on a viola. Ben Rankin does a nice job with the music. Scott Nath plays a prickly monk who likes Christ better as a theological concept than as a flesh-and-blood human being.

At the end of their travels, Al and Angel meet the monk again. He is blind. He is being led by a blind boy, played by Patrick Chu, an eighth-grader from Bellingham. Chu projects hope and innocence and trust, much-needed elements in Tesich's dire tale.

Though written in 1991, with vague relevance to turbulent current events, just now "Open Road" brings to mind the chaos and violence in what was Yugoslavia. As it happens, Tesich was born in Yugoslavia. His name was Titovo Utice then. He came to the United States when he was 13. As an author, he is perhaps best known for his Oscar-winning script for the 1979 movie "Breaking Away."

Not only does "Open Road" have arid stretches. It also has twisty detours that lead nowhere. The business about the ins and outs of killing Jesus amount to what are sometimes called "juvenile dilemmas." They are about as compelling as fourth-grade stumpers on the order of "Which would you rather have, an earache or a toothache?" Well, neither really. And while we're at it, I'd prefer to neither kill Jesus nor be killed myself. In any event, the dilemma is not something that most of us confront on a daily basis.

As a play of ideas, Tesich's "Open Road" is a good deal less compelling than, say, Jean-Paul Sartre's "No Exit" or Peter Weiss' "The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade." But at least "Open Road" is a play of ideas. It is just bursting with ideas.