The Off-Off-Broadway troupe Rude Mechanicals will present two versions of The Bacchae this spring, and neither of them will be by Euripides — though both are adapted from the Greek classic.

First out of the gate is The Bacchae 2.1 by Charles L. Mee, Jr., beginning March 18. Mee apparently loves updating the Greeks; Big Love, his take on Aeschylus' The Suppliants, was a hit at last year's Humana Festival. Kenn Watt will direct.

The next week, on March 23, will see the debut of a new production of A Mouthful of Birds, David Lan and English scribe Caryl Churchill's own rendition of Euripides' work, which tells seven separate stories of contemporary folks falling under the spell of Dionysus. The play will run in repertory with Bacchae 2.1. Rebecca Taylor, who piloted the pre Broadway tour of The Gathering, directs.

Tickets are $19. Both plays will be staged at The Flea Theater at 41 White Street. For more information, call (212) 246-2407.

* The Rude boys began their season with Company, which was adapted by Lane Savadore from Samuel Beckett's prose work of the same name. Audience members at Company were required to lie down on the floor blindfolded, just as the man in the story finds himself prostrate in the dark. They were then poked and stroked as they tracked the play's several subplots told by a variety of voices.

—By Robert Simonson