Playful Weekend

Pantheon of the Playwrights: Shakespeare. Wilde. DeFreitas. ...

De-What-as?

William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde are hallowed names, each considered a sage of the stage. Jason DeFreitas is a who's-he? name, a fledgling purveyor of peculiarity.

But who knows? Someday, DeFreitas could become DeFamous. And this weekend, he's linked to the legends as his play-cum-performance art piece, "Satan's Wedding Ceremony," joins Nevada Conservatory Theatre's "The Importance of Being Earnest" (the Wilde man) and Insurgo Theater Movement's "Henry V" (Billy the Bard) to emote on Vegas stages:

"The Importance of Being Earnest"

Victorian-era vamps and scamps. Laughs born of polished language. Finding the funny in British formality. This fizzy classic, enacted by Nevada Conservatory Theatre, aims to uphold Wilde's paean to Brit wit.

"It was funny when it premiered in 1895, and it's been funny ever since," says director Paul Barnes. "People might think they're going to see a museum piece that's kind of stuffy. This play isn't that. There's a lot of youthful sexuality, but it's wrapped in Victorian Saran Wrap."

This Wilde ride is rife with characters ducking behind false identities to flee certain social obligations, a setup for the comedic skewering of the era's hypocrisy, but with linguistic dexterity rather than physical antics. "It's the virtuosity of language," Barnes says. "This is wit coming from words. We are not accustomed to listening the way people during Oscar Wilde's time listened to plays. People spoke in longer sentences then."

Among the wiseacre witticisms, Wilde-style:

"In matters of utmost importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing."

"To lose one parent may be regarded as misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness."

"Do you smoke? ... That is well. A man should always have an occupation."

Such is the call of the Wilde.

"Satan's Wedding Ceremony"

Mr. and Mrs. Beelzebub? What do you get this couple? Furnace? Flamethrower? Are they registered at Eternal Damnations 'R' Us?

Not to worry. There will be no wedding. Just weirdness.

"It's very abstract," says DeFreitas, perhaps indulging in avant-garde understatement. The play -- or whatever it is -- is a creation of DeFreitas' cryptically named Porcelain Bomb Productions.

"There's one main character, Pastor David, at a ceremony the audience doesn't see. He's in his own personal hell, trying to hold onto a semblance of sanity and normalcy. The audience gets to see the depravity that is the preacher's life. You'll see a staged, hell-type world, populated by video projections and scenery that moves and performances by inanimate objects."

That simplifies casting. And audiences should prep for possible interaction in this preacher's personal hellhole. "The audience is part of a ritualistic experience," DeFreitas says. "He's reaching out and trying to suck them into his world, and it's up to them whether or not they want to follow."

This is Porcelain's sophomore production, following "Zombie Dome Infomercial" (in which zombie parts are sold to cannibals), both based on DeFreitas' U-turn from the usual. "I lost interest in traditional theater," DeFreitas says. "I do stuff I would enjoy seeing. If people are willing to take the risk, I'm not worried they won't enjoy themselves."

Clearly, his style is more wild than Wilde.

"Henry V"

Their lead guy was portrayed by a gal -- call her Hamlette -- in "Hamlet." Gas masks and nudity (though not together -- too kinky) marked "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Their next go at shaking up Shakespeare, "Henry V" features ... just Shakespeare?

"This one may be remarkable in that there are no directorial conceits. I haven't transplanted it to a different era, and we don't have nudity," says John Beane, artistic director of often-offbeat Insurgo Theater Movement, staging the story of the English monarch being a royal buttinsky by attempting to conquer France. "It's a quest for the divine."

Twist-free, this mounting of King Hank's saga is a reverse alternative for an alternative theater, but what's behind Beane's Bard crush? "Hey, the mother(expletive) was pretty good," Beane says.

With a cast of local-theater luminaries -- including Cockroach Theatre's Ernie Curcio as Henry, and Joe Hammond of the College of Southern Nevada as the Duke of Exeter -- the production should be an attention-grabber anyway, highlighted by featuring "the most insane fight choreography you've ever seen" consuming nearly 30 percent of the play.

"We've taken some time, rolled around in the dirt, gotten into some psychological things. It's about returning to honor and glory and the potential for what man can do."

Should we presume the production's timing is purposeful, given the imminent shift to a new American administration?

"I'm sure you could link it to what's going on nationally, but it's not a direct comment on it," Beane insists. "It's about a working-man's warrior."

Sounds like O-drama to us.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.