POLISH JOKE, Salt Lake Acting Company, 168 W. 500 North, closes Feb. 27 (363-7522 or 355-02787). Running time: two hours (one intermission).

At the feet of his aging and sort-of wise, beer-guzzling godfather, 9-year-old Jasiu Sadlowski learns about the world accordion . . . er, according to Uncle Roman.

It's a Polish-American world of ethnic jokes, raw eggs in steins of beer, stout-hearted men (and stout women) dancing "The Beer Barrel Polka" — and little Jasiu is aghast to find out that not everyone enjoys Duck Blood Soup.

In David Ives' humorous and sweetly insightful "Polish Joke," Jasiu (yaw-soo) embarks on a journey that's set in "America and elsewhere" and takes place "now and then."

Over a very fluid 30 years, in which Jasiu (performed wonderfully by Michael Todd Behrens) quickly moves in and out of a Catholic seminary, a Fortune 500 company, a neighborhood flower shop, a hilarious Irish travel agency and an airport near Warsaw, "Polish Joke" examines Everyman's roots and what makes us all both similar and different.

Ives has always been great at delivering sharp one-liners. This time, he gives them a more introspective edge as one young Polish American goes on a worldwide journey to come to grips with his own, unique identity.

While Behrens plays the same role all the way through (his personality shifts gears), the other four performers — Morgan Lund, Kevin Doyle, Arika Schockmel and Daisy Blake — cover a multitude of ethnic bases. They portray everything from sanitation workers, rude florists, an uppity corporate interviewer, doctors and nurses, to an over-the-edge priest and a family of not-quite-Irish travel agents (who would fit right into Michael Flatley's "Lord of the Dance").

In all of their wide-ranging roles, none of them misses a beat. The dialogue is crisp and edgy.

Daisy Blake is particularly outrageous as Portia Benjamin Franklin Hamilton Yale, who must strike fear into any poor, job-seeking slob.

Kevin Doyle, Arika Schockmel and Blake are all hilarious as the high-stepping O'Flanagans, who must be direct descendents of leprechauns.

And Morgan Lund is marvelous in the book-ending roles of Uncle Roman, first middle-aged, then 30 years older.

And, yes, there are quite a few Polish jokes, interspersed with some surreal dream sequences. (Jasiu's youthful game of playing "Polish Army doctor" with Magda, the girl down the block, comes back to haunt him when he ends up in a clinic, confronted by an overbearing nurse and doctor.)

Kirstie Gulick Rosenfield's direction is fast-paced and smooth, Keven Myhre's set is both simple and flexible, and Brenda Van der Weil's costuming is terrific. Equally effective are Jeff Sturgis' lighting and Cynthia L. Kehr's sound design.

Kudos, too, to Adrianne Moore's dialect coaching.

"Polish Joke" is not just a one-joke affair. In a community where ancestry and roots are constantly being researched, Ives offers some interesting perspectives on families and identity.

Sensitivity rating: Profanity and crude ethnic references; frequent use of an r-rated expletive.

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E-mail: ivan@desnews.com