“Nothing like a well-executed piece of agit-prop theater,” Richard Montoya cried to the audience, wearing a Zorro mask, clinging to the side of the railing in the Potiker Theater. Agit-prop, defined as “an openly revolutionary and agitational form of theater, concerned with the day-to-day issues of the class struggle,” is one thing you will not be seeing at “Zorro in Hell” — no matter what the San Francisco Chronicle tells you.

Directed by Tony Taccone, Culture Clash’s “Zorro in Hell” follows a Latino writer (Montoya) who comes upon a mystical old inn run by La Dona (Sharon Lockwood) and Don Ringo (Herbert Siguenza) while trying to find inspiration for an article he has begrudgingly been assigned on the “legend of Zorro.” After two hours of old “Zorro” TV episode projections, hip drug-induced montages and pop-culture references aplenty, the play ends with what the cast dubs a “call to action” — precisely when the formulaic stage-play supposedly becomes “agit-prop.”

Montoya runs into the audience, ordering everyone to put on their paper Zorro masks (page 10 of the program) and asking them to stand up to answer said call to action. Sure, okay, but what call? What action? What the heck were we even talking about — our douchebag governor? High oil prices? Fat little white kids wishing they were Zorro? The cliche “damn the Man” rhetoric, through all its spirit, never specifies what we are fighting for.

“Zorro in Hell” functions as a series of one-line cracks behind a bunch of loosely related political pronouncements. I mean, I hate Bush just as much as the next no-war button-touting objector, but to just hear reference to homeland security in between sex jokes and a giant bear butt-raping the main character isn’t enough to make this successful agit-prop. This critic left the theater with the vague notion of having wasted two hours of valuable Saturday night watching the oversimplified edition of the “Evening News with U2” regurgitate phrases from a Berkeley peace rally. The makers of “Zorro in Hell,” if they are indeed earnest about their roles as agitators, ought to go back to the drawing room and consider the following reasons this stage play fails:

1. It’s just not funny. The punch lines aren’t sharp enough and the scenes are too slow; just because you have the freshness of mind to reference Tupac doesn’t mean we’ll be rolling in the aisles at your ingenuity.

2. It really isn’t about anything. Did they write down potential topics on a piece of paper, then at random moments in the play pull them out of their pockets and read them? It works for “Whose Line Is It Anyway,” but if you’re hoping to achieve any sort of potent social commentary on California politics, it’s just lazy.

3. It is far, far removed from its intended audience. The play is too oversimplified for real activists, but not funny enough for the blockbuster audience. That leaves the typical La Jolla Playhouse patron, who can go home after the show to reminisce on the humor of the play’s Latino jokes while they sit watching Jose cut the grass outside their $4-million mansions on La Jolla Shores.

This is perhaps all a bit unfair — not all LJP regulars live in mansions, and “Zorro in Hell” at least has an interesting premise. Occasionally, the jokes even ring true: The program’s glossary defines Che Guevara as a revolutionary icon found on coffee mugs, T-shirts and caps. But hell, we’re a generation raised on politically savvy comedic giants like Jon Stewart and Mel Brooks; we notice when the jokes are too easy and will not recognize something artless as art just because we agree with the politics. And if the jokes aren’t funny, the work neither artistic nor agitating, then it is not agitational-propaganda theater — it is just propaganda: dull, forced and mind-deadening.

“Zorro in Hell” leaves one feeling even more impotent against political struggle than before, jaded by poor craftsmanship and a lack of intelligent direction behind commentary on issues we want to do something about. Art should be brave, smart and strenuous to make, but effortless to affect — unfortunately, the three men behind Culture Clash succeed at none of the proposed effects of agit-prop theater.