Ladies and gennelmen ... your attention puh-leeze. ... In this corner, wearing blood-soaked purple, the reigning champeen, bowed with the weight of the ages, Ancient Myth! ... Heroism! Bestiality! Pathos! Fratricide!

Members of Squonk Opera performing in "Rodeo Smackdown," clockwise from back left, are Nathan Wilson, Christina Acosta, Steve O'Hearn, Jackie Dempsey and Kevin Kornicki. Click photo for larger image. "Squonk Opera's Rodeo Smackdown" Where: Charity Randall Theatre, Stephen Foster Memorial, Oakland. When: Through Oct. 17; 8 p.m. Thurs.-Fri.; 5:30 and 9 p.m. Sat; 2 p.m. Sun. Tickets: $15-$20; 412-624-PLAY.

Across the ring, pawing the ground in oil-soaked green, the CEO of Cowboy Nation, lusting for worlds to conquer! On either side, note the carnival sets, bizarre costumes and psychedelic movies to make your head spin.

And, now, arriving at mid-ring to mix it all up, that bar band of your fevered dreams, those crackpot modernists and cartooning Michelangelos -- Squonk Opera! Beauties, geeks and crazies! Dream and fantasy! Five musicians, a flood of music and even an actor or two!

How can this smackdown ever end? Who's gonna lead Cowboy Nation? Who will survive, what can it possibly mean ... ?!

Indeed.

To answer, you'll have to see for yourself, which is just as well, because if you never have seen Squonk Opera, you're missing one of Pittsburgh's most distinctive exports, the kind of genre-twisting arts experience that the Cultural Trust devotes serious money to importing from oceans away and calling an International Festival.

And if you have seen Squonk, you sympathize with my difficulty in describing what its members do, because Squonk is a tumbling pop/art festival all by itself.

What they do is play, in every sense. They play their own raucous, often sweetly poignant music, composed by Jackie Dempsey (keyboards, a k a Rodeo Queen) with Kevin Kornicki (percussion, a k a Bad Mooo'd) and married to soaring lyrics by Christina Acosta (vocals, a k a The Woman), backed by Nathan Wilson (bass, a k a The Cowboy).

They play dress-up with witty, baroque sets, props and images by Steve O'Hearn (odd wind instruments, a k a The Engineer), drenched in videos. And they play deconstructively with myth and politics, New Age and Laurie Anderson, opera and metal.

Mainly, they play with our minds, and the result is playful fun that you can pursue to whatever depth you choose -- or not.

If you know your basic Theseus and the Minotaur, you'll recognize them and Poseidon, Pasiphae, Ariadne and Daedalus in the mythic figures of Cowboy Nation, where recent legend (Daddy Oilbucks) is superimposed loosely on ancient myth, complete with an amazing maze. But you don't need to know the old story to enjoy Squonk's squonking, nor do you have to credit the vaguely implied parallels to the Bush family of Texas.

My only regret is that the lyrics aren't more intelligible, because, you know me, I try to follow literary detail. But for that, I've got the CD. In performance, it's best to swim freely rather than hug the shore. So you sit back, let the rich Squonk music swirl over you and free-associate on the imaginative images, visual and aural, which play off both pop culture and Joseph Campbell-like archetype.

Visually, this is one of Squonk's richest shows ever. O'Hearn's cloud-backed flying cupid is like Hieronymus Bosch on a comic bender, but some of the bullring imagery with projected musings by the Minotaur (courtesy of Steven Sherrill) is intensely sad. Squonk is often klunky, but its range of feeling is broad.

There's a large assist from new director Rick Kemp, who has smoothed out some of the narrative without knocking off the eccentric angles that make Squonk Squonk. Actor Karen Baum (buried in the program as Run Crew) plays the cute cowgirl who faces off with spoiled Ariadne, and there are lots of others involved.

All Squonk needs is an audience. We're lucky to have it here, in between Belgium and Japan, or wherever it's headed next, brandishing the name of Pittsburgh to the envy of less-happy lands.