Being green NewGate’s Frogs has legs BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

Performed with a range of skills that are all over the map, the NewGate Theatre adaptation of Aristophanes’s The Frogs nonetheless succeeds in making the world an entertainingly smaller place for 75 minutes.

The next performances are at the Steelyard, 27 Sims Street, Providence, on August 21 at 6 pm, and in September at the Pawtucket Arts Festival on a date to be announced.

Transmogrified from satire to burlesque by artistic director Brien Lang from various translations, this version conveys with earnest abandon that at least since the 400s B.C. there have been audiences and playwrights eager to turn frowns, even those on masks of tragedy, upside down.

It is the spirit of tragedy that this comedy play writer ironically wanted to rescue by sending the god of wine down to Hades to bring back his favorite tragic poet and playwright, Euripides (Marc Berry). (The Greeks knew him as Dionysus, who was also in charge of fertility and known as a patron of the arts. But these days his Roman version is more familiar to even Greek fraternity revelers, so he’s Bacchus here.)

Bacchus (F. William Oakes) is accompanied by his overburdened servant and comical sidekick, Xanthias (James Kane), who immediately is cautioned against telling any fart jokes — humor as broad as a barn-door backside is clearly in the offing. To more easily sneak into the underworld, Bacchus disguises himself as his half-brother Hercules (Alex Sherba), complete with plastic club that squeaks upon impact like a squeeze toy. Hercules, you see, had already made a successful journey down there, where he stole Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the gates. Hercules doesn’t appreciate the brotherly impostor, and suggests that if Bacchus wants to go to Hell he can try any of several convenient forms of suicide.

From Dante to New Yorker cartoons, no journey to Hades is complete without milking the opportunity of crossing the river Styx. Charon (Marc Berry), the ferryman of the dead, doesn’t give Bacchus a hard time since the latter is a god and Charon "subscribes to a Nietzschean point of view," namely that God is dead. The "boat" is a couple of inner tubes, a lot more fun to look at than a punt being poled through dry-ice smoke.

In comedy as well as in tragedy, every hellish adventure requires that the main characters at least occasionally be in jeopardy. Even if Bacchus weren’t a god, he is the boss, so poor Xanthias has to exchange his rags for the Hercules get-up whenever the costume becomes a danger magnet. Kane does well alternating nail-biting and bravado, but Oakes has trouble giving his comedy much ebb and flow — his Bacchus threatened with torture reacts the same as when threatened with inconvenience. While we’re on the subject, Marc Berry stands out convincingly in his several roles, from a stern king of the Underworld to an exasperated Euripides.

Euripides has plenty to be frustrated about here. Aeschylus (Mecca) points out that his rival’s plays are filled with whores and thieves, reprobates rather than edifying characters. Euripides remains dignified, proud of having held the chair of tragedy in the Underworld before Aeschylus usurped his throne. He is nevertheless willing to participate in what amounts to an ancient Greek poetry slam. (They also give Irving Berlin a run for his verses in their version of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.") Judged by a drunken, staggering Bacchus, they recite some of their most tragic verses. Eventually they boil down their offerings to one-line sound bites that are weighed on scales. (Heavy, man. Get it?) Death and corpses trump flights of fancy, by the way.

The title of the play refers to the chorus of amphibians, here represented by three women garbed in lime green and matching wigs, led with flair by Carol Mecca. Greek frogs, by the way, don’t go ribbet but rather brek-ke-ke-kek. Thank goodness that adapter Lang, who also directed this production, didn’t overlook using the folk song "A Frog Went A-Courting" as a template for one of the several ditties here. However, he needs to get somebody else on electric guitar, since his three chords or so, however sincerely strummed, just aren’t enough.

Some years ago I saw The Frogs at Epidaurus, but since it was in Greek I could tell what was happening in scenes only from what I recalled from having read the play for the occasion. So what mostly came across was its sense of comic vitality — which is mainly what is offered here.