Thirteen monologues and playwrights. Thirteen "Villains." Three and a half hours in Hell.

Rage of the Stage Players' latest is an ambitious showcase of wickedness, in which a rogues' gallery ranging from Henry VIII to Medusa to Lucifer himself regales us with monologues from the stage of The Boiler Room, an infernal cabaret (actually the Brew House on the South Side).

Our "monster of ceremonies," Chuck Roast, is played with over-the-top lounge-lizard oiliness by Joseph Lyons. Also providing diversion, set adjustments, eye candy and sexual tension are six demons half-dressed and made up for a campus Halloween party. Or orgy.

The first monologue is thrown out by the nightclub's guest of honor, Lucifer, played by Stephen Chamberlain in snow-white pimp attire and glittering Fabio mane. This isn't Lucifer as evil incarnate but Lucifer as rock star; less Prince of Darkness than Prince.

His monologue, penned by co-producer and co-director James Michael Shoberg and delivered with preening petulance, is less like a roar of Miltonian anguish than a rant overheard in a hair salon.

To be fair, "Villains" is billed as a dark comedy. Sometimes that's hard to keep in mind, because the laughs are often pretty far apart.

Remember what happened to "Saturday Night Live," when the sketches would start out with a clever premise and some funny lines and then go on too long? This is the affliction of "Villains" -- every one of the monologues is in need of an editor.

Not that there aren't plenty of inventive ideas. Fred Betzner has Nosferatu (played with droll creepiness by Jeffrey J. Preberg Jr.) tell the story of his movie pitch at a Hollywood studio. Alyssa Herron's Headless Horseman monologue, performed by Dek Ingraham and Tom Sterner, has the pumpkin-headed Hessian miming ribaldly while an effete riding-academy instructor interprets.

James Robert Shaw imagines Morgan LeFay (Adrienne Fischer) as a sexy, "very family-oriented" corporate CEO, and Joseph A. Roots resurrects the obscure but gothically murderous Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Joanna Lowe) to hawk her line of blood-based beauty products.

The performances are uneven, reflecting a wide range of experience among the actors, but even the standouts -- Preberg, Fischer, Bryan Jackson as Jack the Ripper, Lowe, and Richard W. Eckman as the surprise final malefactor -- seem a little taxed by dissertations that would be 100 percent better if they were 50 percent shorter.

Even the brief scenes with the demons cry out for quicker pacing, though it's hard to cross a stage briskly in six-inch heels. The costumes, though, are breathtakingly good, and the makeup is also outstanding.

There are good ideas in "Villains," and talent. But some of the writing tries too clumsily to shock. At 3¹/₂ hours, this anthology is in need of strong discipline. Well, they've already got the leather and dog collars.