Do the Hippie Hippie Shakes(peare)

O Shakespearean thespian, didst we hear thee right?

Kindly quoteth thyself anew, we beseech thee.

"Poichance ya wonder at dis show."

"Poichance"? Bard by way of the Bronx? And wait -- isn't that a '60s bohemian zipping through on a skateboard?

Yet our director, Robert Benedetti -- aka Benny, self-described aging hippie in loud rainbow suspenders, groovy tie-dyed shirt and brown headband -- allows this oddball run-through to proceed at an upstairs rehearsal hall at the university's fine arts building, given that his dress and actors' accents snap snugly into "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Benny-style.

"This is a play about peace and love, so I've set it in 1969," says Benedetti, whose reimagined version, performed by Nevada Conservatory Theatre, debuts tonight at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"The nobles are like the Nixon-era White House. The working-class guys are in a 'Cheers' kind of bar, and we've made it Archie Bunker kind of prose, a lot of 'dese' and 'dose.' The fairies I've treated as a roving hippie band who live in the woods, there's a lot of magic spells and recreational drugs, and the woods is like a Peter Max poster. It has this celebratory, breaking-loose spirit."

Billy Shakes' moonshine-and-magic comedy, with its yearning lovers and frolicking fairies, is one of the Bard's more adaptable classics. Tackling the piece for the fourth time in his lengthy directing career, Benedetti's lent it a different spin each time.

(Perhaps the most lauded contemporary riff on "Dream," staged in 1970 by Peter Brook for the Royal Shakespeare Company, was set in a circus.)

"It's originally set in Athens in classical Greece, but lovers running around in togas just doesn't cut it for the modern audience," says Benedetti, who also plays a small part in his own production.

"There are a lot of mythological references to the gods we've cut because there's no reason to burden audiences with it. And it's short. Including the intermission, people will be out in less than two hours. I'd rather hit 'em with the A material and get out."

"Dream" is not merely whimsical, but musical. Finger-snappy piano tunes waft through Rehearsal Hall 206 -- a blast of barrelhouse boogie, courtesy of composer Christopher Lash, as Benny's cast gathers to kick-start the kookiness.

"There's a strong tradition of music associated with it -- Mendelssohn's 'Midsummer Night's Dream Suite,' and there was a rock opera a couple of decades ago," Benedetti says.

"The play calls out for music because it is so lyrical. We (he and Lash) went through the script, and I pointed out the speeches I thought were most like song lyrics. Then he created musical settings for those speeches."

Such a madcap mojo invigorates audiences' appetite for Shakespeare, says co-star Kate Mazzola.

"I wasn't quite sure of the concept going in, but we don't lose the story to the concept," says Mazzola, who portrays Titania, queen of the fairies, and will perform clad in psychedelic paisley, her hair stuffed into a red 'fro wig. "But it's not like there's peace signs everywhere, it's not eating the story, it adds."

Jumping into Titania's skin, she also notes, is a schizophrenic pleasure. "She has this amazing, powerful entrance, a really combative, confrontational scene with her husband, the king of the fairies," she says. "Then she's completely different in the latter half of the play, because she falls in love with a man dressed as a donkey."

As her other royal half -- the king, not the donkey dude -- Brooks Asher is enjoying this retro revelry, even if his retro is rather recent.

"I remember Woodstock '94, that's about as close as I'm getting, but it's especially fun because this is Benny's era, and it's fun to be with a director who can feed into it," says Asher, i.e. King Oberon. "(Shakespeare) is not a museum, it has to be a living, breathing piece of theater."

Still the Bard? You bet:

"Good morrow, friends."

"Fair lovers, you are fortunately met."

"Joy and fresh days of love accompany your heart."

And yet:

"Yonda she comes ... Sweet yoot and tall."

Borrowing from "My Cousin Vinny" ... What is a "yoot"?

Fear not, ye gentle readers. As one character wisely proclaims:

"All will be revealed anon."

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