Tragedy and comedy make freaky bedfellows in “Oedipus the King, Mama!” This latest romp from Troubadour Theater Company turns the Getty Villa’s annual outdoor theater production into a Freudian carnival of psychosexual madness.

In “Lizastrata,” the troupe’s 2021 Getty Villa production, Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata,” the old political comedy in which women declare a sex strike to stop a ruinous war, and that singular showbiz sensation, Liza Minnelli, were merrily united in a lampoon with Bob Fosse flourishes. Here, Sophocles’ “Oedipus the King” and Elvis, the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, are brought together for an equally madcap if less artfully composed mashup.

The Elvis that storms into this ancient land known as Malibu is long past his prime. As impersonated by Matt Walker, the company’s director and comic frontman, he makes the late-career Las Vegas singer look like a spring chicken. Wearing a white jumpsuit adorned with rhinestones and a wig that looks as if some woodland creature had nested on his head, Walker’s Elvis has a bowlegged gait that suggests either a cumbersome protuberance or the early stages of rigor mortis.

There’s a younger version of the character, played by Steven Booth in a cartoon muscle suit and a tunic that makes it easy to flash the audience. But this exhibitionistic Oedipus is the star of the show’s unnecessary preface, a belabored warmup act that should have been cut in rehearsals.

The show feels overextended, as if 45-minutes of comic material had been inflated to fill out a 90-minute slot. The company’s commedia dell’arte-style shenanigans have a natural elasticity but farcical lunacy snaps when stretched too far.

The references to Southern California are unfailingly funny (this Oedipus claims to have started out as the crown prince of Temecula). But there’s something tired about an Elvis parody. The pompadour gag has lost its cultural shelf life. For the TikTok generation, it might as well be Thomas Jefferson who’s crooning “Hound Dog.”

The music still instantly captivates, even if whole swaths of the audience won’t be familiar with the original songs, impudently rewritten for the occasion. A version of “All Shook Up” is brilliantly deployed just as Oedipus is told the truth of his identity by Teiresias (Mike Sulprizio, outfitted to make the blind prophet look like a rejected member of the “Harry Potter” universe.)

How could any son not be shaken to the core after discovering that he not only killed his father but married his mother and sired his own siblings! That’s a lot to take in, as the cast routinely jokes. But denial buys time for a protagonist who’s too busy acting out his Oedipal fantasies to grapple with difficult realities.

The cast of “Oedipus the King, Mama!” at the Getty Villa.

(Craig Schwartz / J. Paul Getty Trust)

The object of Oedipus’ stunted affection is Jocasta (played by Beth Kennedy in a Priscilla Presley wig and the manner of a Southern ex-showgirl turned cougar). Kennedy not only steals the show but comes close to saving it. The comedy isn’t afraid to go low — poor mixed-up Oedipus isn’t yet fully weaned — but Kennedy’s Jocasta never loses her audacious, sexy-mama vivacity.

Rick Batalla, who plays Creon (pronounced crayon here), Oedipus’ straight-shooting brother-in-law, is another standout, eager to show off his own impish Elvis moves. The musical numbers are more elaborate than karaoke acts, but the volume is contained in deference to the Getty Villa’s neighbors, draining the staging of some of its theatrical power.

Scenically, the costumes of Sharon McGunigle and the puppet and prop design of Matt Scott do the heavy lifting. Walker’s direction has a grab-bag aspect, as if the invitation from the Getty Villa came too late to smoothly integrate all the moving parts.

Walker makes a jokey aside to that effect at the start of “Oedipus the King, Mama!” But no one’s complaining. The Getty Villa survived the fires and it can survive this jovial, if half-baked, Sophoclean circus. Levity is what’s needed now, and the Troubies are still funnier than anything AI could come up with, even if the joke is that ChatGPT had a hand in the script.