" I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in 40 minutes, " replies Puck when ordered by Oberon to seek out the flower that serves as the Visine of love’s allegiance. But in the Publick Theatre’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Puck takes a shortcut through the earth, popping into one of the three trap doors in the stage that serve major traffic. Director Diego Arciniegas seems to have taken his cue from Puck’s later plan to lead the play’s jumbled lovers " Up and down, up and down. " And indeed, the confused and fatigued foursome end up down the traps as well, with just arms and feet sticking out, as do Titania and Bottom for their bestial tryst. You’d think A Midsummer Night’s Dream was set not in the Athenian wood but in Tolkien’s Mines of Moria — especially since most of the attendants on the fairy queen, gotten up in rubber monster masks, look less like sprites than like Gimli the dwarf.

Arciniegas seems to aim here for an earthy, even a coarse Dream, wherein the fairy king boasts equine hindquarters, the fairy queen yawns and cackles like a scullery wench, Puck is a sort of biker Pan, and the fairy henchmen are big, fat, hairy goblins. (There are exceptions: two sprites, named Pistil and Stamen for the sex organs of plants, look like butterflies, and the " Over hill, over dale " fairy, lightly personated by Naeemah A. White-Peppers, sports an African wrap and wings like leaves.) The idea may be to make the enchanted wood, hung here with straggly, vivid vines and backed by an African totem, both sexual and a little menacing. Certainly the journey in is a trip to the primal, with the Athenian visitors, even " bully Bottom, " losing clothes as they go. But neither the sex nor the danger registers.

Neither does much of the Bard’s poetry — though Arciniegas, as the horsy Oberon on cothurns, and Susanne Nitter, as Titania, do know how to speak the verse. (Thank goodness, since their sparking exchanges about the disturbances in nature caused by their feuding are crucial.) Moreover, Nitter’s Titania, accessorized by long red tresses and odd, interesting wings, manages to look both swampy and ethereal. The two actors double as a pompous Theseus and a snitty Hippolyta, whose impending nuptials have drawn their fairy ex-lovers to the Greater Athens area, but that pair are seldom interesting. Arciniegas does give Theseus kindly touches, for example sitting down with Hermia in the first scene and expressing genuine concern that she understand her options: to marry the man her father has chosen for her rather than the one she loves, or to die, or to become a nun.

It is the plight of Hermia that gets the Midsummer Night’s Dream ball rolling, as she escapes to the woods with inamorato Lysander, only to be pursued by fiancé Demetrius and his spurned love, Helena. Once in fairy territory, these four are mixed and mismatched like a bad wardrobe by the fairy king and his mischievous servant, Puck. The four lovers are played here by Ben Lambert, a somewhat bland Lysander; Nathan Blew, a slightly dangerous Demetrius; Devon Jencks, a better Helena when she’s mad than when she’s fawning; and Stacy Fischer, a cute but whiny Hermia. Fischer is an actress I have admired in contemporary roles, but if she wants to play Shakespeare, she needs to hie herself to Tina Packer or Kristin Linklater for some vocal training. When the betrayals heat up, however, the lovers put some moves on one another that would qualify them for the WWE; their spirited spatting is the liveliest part of the production.

The rude mechanicals, by contrast, rehearsing and then performing their " tragical mirth " for Theseus’s wedding, are more touching than hilarious. Steven Barkhimer is an amusing Bottom, in part because, compared with his fellows, he is a bit rakish, a little vain about it, and very earnest about his acting. Arciniegas, however, emphasizes Theseus’s " it’s the thought that counts " attitude toward the proffered play, and the production therefore doesn’t kick the mechanicals (who employ working-class Boston accents) around too much. In fact, the death scene of Richard LaFrance’s Thisbe is sort of sweet.

Bill Gardiner’s Puck, sporting a mohawk and a tail, is part satyr, part woodland punk, and when it’s time for the epilogue, he peels off his hairdo and lights up a cigarette. " If we shadows have offended . . .  " he mumbles, squinting casually at the audience. Hey, don’t worry about it, Robin. We’re not offended. Not particularly beguiled, either.