Pirates and vampires and rogues! Oh my!

"Honor Amongst Thieves" is a splashy new main stage production that combines a drawer full of discarded action-horror screenplays into a live performance that crosses the line into the territory of bad dreams.

Leeward Community College alumnus Reb Beau Allen wrote, directed and stars in the production. If this were more demanding material, such triple duty might spread a single energy too thinly. But given the shallow script and the emphasis on action, Allen has enough stamina to keep everything moving.

The plot lurches from one major fight sequence to another, linked by mostly unintelligible, shouted dialogue. Speeches that can be deciphered are a mixture of banal cliches ("I'll see you in hell!", "Over my dead body!") and attempts at elevated speech (the "amongst" in the title). We give up trying to translate and coast along with the sound and fury.

Sulking pirate Capt. John Blackheart (Allen) is the central figure, still glowering three years after losing the love of his life. He marks the anniversary of her death by getting stinking drunk, putting on a woman's dress and heading for the worst part of town to pick fights.

It turns out that inebriated cross-dressing is his most endearing characteristic. But having exhausted it in the first scene, Allen has him spend the rest of the production lurking about as a gothic and hostile stiff-back.

The plot has something to do with treasure, a contest and rescuing the governor's daughter from vampires and a bad marriage.

Out of the entire morass, an interesting character emerges. Spencer Moon (who also cross-dressed as a Merry Wife in last summer's Shakespeare festival) plays a cowardly comic itinerant actor looking for his next meal, who reveals a loyal and courageous hidden streak.

It's not possible to take all of this seriously, and the opening night audience quickly picked up on that.

The strong point in LCC productions is that they get everybody into the act. This production boasts a cast of 45 and dozens more behind the scenes. The result is egalitarian, energizing and interesting in a "Halloween meets Acting 101" kind of way.