Beyond its ubiquity on high school reading lists, the romantic comedy is one of the Shakespeare's most produced classics in professional theaters. PTC's new "Dream" will be freelance director Barnes' ninth time helming the play, "if you include a couple of school projects from when I was a high school drama teacher," says Barnes, who is based in Ashland, headquarters of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Utah theatergoers know Barnes' work from the recent PTC production of "You Can't Take It With You," as well as the popular 2004 and 2005 Utah Shakespearean Festival versions of "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Foreigner." For this show, Barnes was reunited with Utah-based choreographer Jayne Luke and such familiar PTC players as Max Robinson, Paul Mulder, Jason Tatom and Justin Ivie.

The play's set is designed by Peter Harrison, his 24th at PTC, with costumes by Susan Branch, who designed the Utah company's "Chicago" and "Beauty and the Beast." The new "Dream" also features an original score by former PTC music director James Prigmore.

"Dream" is set in the Athenian court before the marriage of Duke Theseus and Queen Hippolyta. Events are set into motion when Egeus complains that his spunky daughter, Hermia, refuses to marry his pre-selected suitor, Demetrius. She loves Lysander, while Demetrius is sought by his former girlfiend, Helena.

When the young wannabe lovers steal away to the forest, their plans are upset by the fairies, led by King Oberon and his attendant, Puck, who let loose some powerful magic juice. Another plot complication follows a troupe of workmen, who are preparing a play to be performed at the royal wedding.

"I'm not the sort of director who comes up with a big, bright idea: 'Let's set it on the moon because that would be interesting,' " Barnes says. "My goal is always to tell the story as clearly and as honestly as possible. It's a play about transformation, transformation of the heart, physical transformations, and also, one of the great transformations, the mechanicals get to experience the transformative power of theater."

In an interview, the director spilled the beans about good underwear and dished about the social class of Shakespeare's young lovers (just consider Lysander and Hermia, Demetrius and Helena as the most popular kids at Athens High School).

So if this "Dream" isn't set on the moon, tell us about the look of the production.

One of the things I usually say to designers is that the clothing can reflect what's happening spiritually and psychologically. We've set this production in the Edwardian era, early 1900s, because I think it's a lovely romantic look, a pretty good period for underwear. As the lovers get further and deeper into the forest and the midsummer madness, they gradually get stripped down.

What's relevant to modern audiences about the play's use of magic?

It's a play that exists on multiple planes simultaneously and reminds us that whatever we might think is not necessarily the real world is close at hand. The Elizabethians were great believers in the supernatural and fairies. I don't think that's all that different today, really.

What's the most interesting challenge about creating the separate worlds within the play?

It's what do you do about the supernaturals, because they're the most generally defined characters and the most open to interpretation. The lovers are affluent, well-born teenagers, the stars of Athens High School, while the mechanicals are day laborers, workmen. But the supernaturals exist across time and space and centuries.

How do you work to translate the lovely thickets of Shakespearean prose?

I always start with the words. The language is 400 years old, and of the time in which there weren't all the modern substitutes and replacements, no media or television or photography or billboards with golden arches on them. Language was everything, in terms of communication and entertainment. I'm a great believer that any fourth-grader can and should understand the plays of Shakespeare, and if they don't, then we really haven't done our work.

ellenf@sltrib.com

What fools these mortals be

* "A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM" opens Friday and continues through March 1 (except Sundays) at Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre, 300 S. 1400 East, Salt Lake City. Curtain is at 7:30 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, with 2 p.m. matinees on Saturdays.

* TICKETS ARE $21 to $39 (K-12 students half-price on Mondays and Tuesdays), available by calling 801-581-6961 or visiting www.pioneertheatre.org.