STAGE REVIEW

The subtitle says it all in "The Power of Desire: A Midsummer Nightmare." A rewrite of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Reb Beau Allen, the production explores the original comedy's dark side by setting it in "The Forest," a nightclub for erotic fantasies. In this context, Titania is a cross-dressing club hostess, Puck is a junkie, and so much sex ensues that we lose track of who's been with whom.

Nevertheless, Shakespeare's original characters (the Royals, the Rustics, the Lovers, and the Fairies) commingle on a more common plane and are rescued from their folly, not by magic, but through the power of love. In Allen's interpretation, salvation ultimately bubbles up through the grittiness. But not without a series of — sometimes literally electric — shocks.

Theseus (also played by Allen) sets the play in motion, but in this version he's a gangland godfather, dispensing justice with bullets from a handgun and ritualistic suffocation by plastic bag. In the opening scene, he executes his rival and, lifting a scene from Shakespeare's "Richard III," wins Hippolyta's promise of marriage over the corpse of her former lover.

From there, it's an easy segue for him to threaten Hermia with death if she does not agree to marry her father's choice of bridegroom. The rest of the play fairly parallels the sequence of the original, but in the gangster/club context and with the absence of poetry, the visual representations carry the weight of the evening.

It begins at 7:30 with a deejayed 30-minute club pre-show; cast members mingle and dance a little. An obviously stoned Helena (Helena Chao), stalks an evasive Demetrius (Joshua Weldon), while Puck (Patrick Pascua) works the fringe of the crowd, generously sharing his ample supply of little white pills.

When the action picks up, a sexually ambiguous but omnivorous Oberon (Jonathan Reyn) distributes love potions to confuse the mortals, causing Titania (played in high drag and with glorious abandon by Coco Chandelier) to fall in love with Bottom (Brandon Hagio, with stapled-on donkey ears.)

In this version, the Fairies are the club's exotic dancers, and the feud between Oberon and Titania to possess the Indian Boy (Caiell Yoshida) is clarified — he's one of the dancers that they both want to possess. An unexpected ending gives the comedy a final twist: The last image is that of Puck, preparing to shoot up.

So, what does Allen have that Shakespeare didn't? For one, a desire to shock us with perverse humor. Shakespeare wouldn't have said, "Honey, that STD you gave me last week — it's back!" The Bard would have at least given it an internal rhyme scheme.

He's also aimed to make the action relevant by using a contemporary idiom, making the passion dangerous and raw by removing 400 years of reverence and study. If the rewrite is taken in tandem with the original, both versions would produce greater understanding.

So congratulations to Reb Beau Allen for a startling concept and script, to director Paul Cravath and his cast for another gutsy presentation, and to the dance and fight choreographers and technical crew for making a basement production look as good as this one does. Certainly, this "Midsummer Nightmare" is never boring.

Joseph T. Rozmiarek has been reviewing theater performances in Hawai'i since 1973.

DETAILS:

"The Power of Desire: A Midsummer Nightmare"

8 p.m. tomorrow, Thursday and April 11; and 4 and 8 p.m. April 12

Leeward Community College Lab Theatre

$10

455-0549