THEATER REVIEW ‘A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM’ : Play’s the Thing : The venue for Shakespeare’s comedy is changed to a Colorado Gold Rush town. The idea doesn’t quite pan out.

If Shakespeare can be transplanted to the West Side of New York by the creative team of Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein; to feudal Japan by film director Akira Kurosawa, and to outer space by the producers of “Forbidden Planet” (not to mention early California by the Santa Susana Repertory Company in last year’s “Romeo and Juliet”), one of the Bard’s comedies can probably withstand the shock of transplantation to Colorado in the Gold Rush days.

Which is what’s been done to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by the Conejo Players of Thousand Oaks, under the direction of Mark Reyes. The production opened last week and continues through July 20.

The usual reasons for these relocations of time and place are to make the plays more relevant or more accessible to contemporary audiences. Another reason might be the possible savings on sets and costumes, or to avoid the potential embarrassment of actors struggling with English accents.

Whether this version is more accessible is anybody’s guess. Reyes’ version doesn’t stint on the sets (which are simple but massive) or on costumes. The characters speak the Queen’s English, more or less, with a motley variety of bad accents ranging from surfer Californian (perhaps inspired by Kevin Costner in “Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves”) to American Southern to Irish.

At least some members of Saturday night’s audience didn’t find the show all that easy to take or understand; the initially sold-out house had several seats newly available after intermission.

And any Great Truths revealed by the relocation to the fictional mining town of Athens were minor Great Truths--this is, after all, a comedy.

These characters are military men, miners and other types you might find in mid-19th-Century Colorado. Shakespeare’s fairies are here embodied as a tribe of mystical Native Americans, with Oberon a chief and Puck a shaman with all the malevolence of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Hermea, one of the two ingenues, is played as a businessman’s daughter by Catherine Best; Helena, the other, is an Annie Oakley-style mountain gal played by Bailey Spencer. Lysander (Scott Werve) is a handsome soldier; Demetrius (Gary Romm), while not without appeal, is neither particularly handsome nor a soldier.

Reyes, who has previously directed productions of “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Candide” and this year’s excellent Camarillo Community Theater “Pirates of Penzance” has here met his match. Filled with ideas, the show comes off as half-finished.

There are also problems with the acting. Michael Tachco, so good in the Conejo group’s “Children of a Lesser God,” takes the verse too seriously, resulting in a singsong delivery and the rhyming of “wind” (in the atmospheric sense) and “find.”

While many of the other actors are more effective, the show finds its center in the troupe of workmen who stage a production of the tragedy “Pyramus and Thisby” for Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding: When Ken Alexander, David Banuelos, Mick McCauley, Roland Shroyer and Terry Fishman take the stage as Quince, Flute, Snout, Snug and Bottom, the production shows its greatest spark by far.

Another comic highlight is the big second-act confrontation between Demetrius, under Puck’s spell, and Helena.

This, then, isn’t the production to make up your mind about Shakespeare, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the Conejo Players or even director Reyes. For those familiar with the play, though, the current production might offer some amusement. You might make plans for this weekend: By convention and the modern calendar, tonight is Midsummer Night.

* WHERE AND WHEN

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” continues Thursday through Saturday nights at 8:30 through July 20 at the Conejo Players Theater, 351 S. Moorpark Road in Thousand Oaks. General admission tickets are $8 on Thursdays, $10 on Friday and Saturday, with $1 discount for seniors and children 12 and under. Group discounts are also available. For reservations (highly recommended) and further information, call (805) 495-3715.