It doesn’t bypass the brain, though. In less capable hands, it could have been a travesty or a mere stunt. But codirectors Diane Paulus and Randy Weiner, who created “Donkey Show’’ a decade ago in New York, have devised a visual language to express the essence of Shakespeare’s play while not using a word of his text (unless the line “I am your boogie man. You turn me on’’ somehow got left out of my Pelican edition Shakespeare).
It was an audacious decision by Paulus to begin her tenure as ART artistic director with “Donkey Show,’’ the initial entry in her “Shakespeare Exploded!’’ festival. This production will not be everyone’s cup of tea. But if the performance I attended is any indication, Paulus’s gamble may pay off by attracting a much younger audience than is the theatrical norm.
Not that audience is precisely the right word, if it implies passive watching rather than sustained booty-shaking on the dance floor, which is how much of the crowd spent “Donkey Show.’’ The action unfolded in and around them as strobe lights swept the scene, a mirrored ball glittered on the ceiling above, and shirtless actors in spandex hot pants acrobatically bounded across tables and tumbled down stairs.
The mixed-up mortals whose romantic misadventures form the spine of “Dream’’ - renamed Helen, Dimitri, Mia, and Sander - are now patrons of a Studio 54-style nightclub presided over by Mr. Oberon. At the moment, he’s on the outs with Tytania (Titania in “Dream’’), a disco queen who wears butterfly pasties and not much else.
