Updated ‘Salome’ by Buffalo Nights

The posthumous premiere of Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” 90 years ago must have shocked Edwardian bluenoses, who likely weren’t prepared for cheeky depictions of incest and necrophilia. Though Wilde’s biblical riff has perhaps lost a bit of its shock value, its playful subversiveness remains mostly intact in the new production by Buffalo Nights Theatre Company at the 2nd Stage Theatre in Hollywood.

Give director Howard Teichman credit for trying to give this windy romantic potboiler some sort of modern context. Hence a young Syrian captain (Brian Kite) is garbed in the red beret and white T-shirt of the Guardian Angels. The cistern holding the imprisoned John the Baptist (Gibson Frazier) is here transformed into a telephone booth, while a battered street light substitutes for the text’s blood-red moon.

Sydney Bennet plays the title character as a girlish vixen who looks as if she just finished shopping at a trendy Melrose boutique. It’s a suitably teasing performance, though hardly groundbreaking. When she singsongs “bring me the head of John the Baptist,” she might as well be begging her stepdad for a sports car. But then making Salome’s feverish infatuation convincing might tax the skills of many an actress. David Paul Needles’ Herod, is a giddy, perspiring tyrant--a perverse mix of Donald Trump and Dom DeLuise.

None of the actors seems to take the project all that seriously, which is probably a wise choice.

* “Salome,” 2nd Stage Theatre, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays, 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Ends June 18. $12.50. (213) 466-1767. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.