When he died in 1977 or, as "Him" suggests, when he engineered his own disappearance, Elvis had become an absurd figure in an absurd world made in the image of Las Vegas. Here was someone overwhelmed by time and drugs. Though surrounded by adoration, he was isolated and alone, dogged by the fame that forced him to have his teeth cleaned at 4 A.M. Absurd, indeed, is any such god who has no other god but him.

Though the play's running time is short, "Him" often seems longer than both parts of "Angels in America." As directed by Jim Simpson on Kyle Chepulis's handsomely spare platform set, it's a succession of takes on fame, innocence and emotional befuddlement, written and staged as burlesque sketches. When Elvis recalls the day of his death from what was officially listed as cardiac arrhythmia, he listens appalled as the doctors make the decision to pull the plug on him. Says the nurse: "We're dealing with someone who's brain-damaged to some extent." Says Elvis: "I could live with that," but the plug is pulled anyway.

There's an utterly mysterious sequence as four actors in their underwear stand by his grave and mourn. There's also a variation on the gravedigger scene from "Hamlet." A reporter from Vanity Fair arrives to interview Elvis and accuse him of song theft. His taxman reports that he's making more money dead than alive. A disappointed fan describes one of Elvis's grotesque final appearances in Las Vegas. At one point, a fat, larger-than-life-size, sponge-rubber likeness of the late-period Elvis is tossed around the stage. Through it all, Elvis himself offers lengthy and opaque commentaries, with incidental music supplied by Organ Donor, a four-member rock combo seated in a small pit to the back and left of the playing platform.

Never has any fully clothed actor looked as naked on the stage as Mr. Walken does in "Him." He appears to be enjoying himself immensely, but the performance also seems uncharacteristically edgy, full of awkward movements and transitions, sometimes almost embarrassing. There's none of Elvis's own intuitive grace, nor of Mr. Walken's. He both plays the role and stands outside it, speaking in a Southern drawl that recalls Tennessee Williams's while every now and then sending up the accent by saying "thang" for "thing."

Though it's clear that he's made the decision not to do an Elvis impersonation, it's not easy to identify what he is doing, possibly because the lines he's written for himself are so full of wooly generalizations. Sample: "Chaos is the mamma and poppa of all things."