RICH, YOUNG AND THIN : ‘Henry IV’: Grove Theatre Center’s royal treatment has vision but abdicates authority.

Perhaps this staging of “Henry IV” should be subtitled “Mad to the Max.” Or “Bard Runner.”

In combining and condensing Shakespeare’s “Henry IV,” Parts 1 and 2, at the Grove Theater Center, director Kevin Cochran has also projected the war-ravaged saga into a future that calls to mind any number of tales of bleak tomorrows.

It’s a stretch, but Cochran keeps things interesting by rendering his world with bold details: weapons that appear to have been scavenged from scrapheaps and costumes (lots of leather pants and leather harnesses) that seem pilfered from Dennis Rodman’s closet.

Cochran’s casting hampers him, however. He has populated the play with gym-toned hunks whose main purpose, it would appear, is to look good with bared arms and chests. But several are too young for their roles, and only a couple have mastered the language.

The Henry IV plays seem almost misnamed, because they focus not on the king but on his oldest son, Prince Hal. (For those who have trouble keeping the Henrys straight: Daddy became the first English king from the House of Lancaster after he forced his rash cousin, Richard II, from the throne. In so doing, he set the stage for the Wars of the Roses. Prince Hal became Henry V, one of England’s greatest warrior kings.)

In dramatizing this turbulent history, Shakespeare also ruminates on life’s delicate balances--between revelry and responsibility, fairness and severeness and so on.

Young Hal spends his days in a drunken daze, urging his older, buffoonish pal Falstaff into all sorts of mischief. Meanwhile, another Henry, a cunning young soldier from the insurgent Percy clan, poses a serious threat to the family’s hold on the throne. Hal sobers up fast.

In his ancillary role as set designer, Cochran creates a bleak, blasted environment of bare metal towers and lookout scaffolds. His more athletic actors use these as jungle gyms, climbing through the frames to reach the upper regions.

The air of the outdoor stage seems perpetually filled with dust and smoke, which intensifies the fiery reds and yellows of David Darwin’s lights. David Ortega’s sound design adds metallic rasps and thumping techno dance music. Terri L. Nista’s costumes encase the actors in dark leathers and second-hand rags, with just a dash of flashy brocade for the royals.

Too bad the casting isn’t as fine. The central roles are the most awkward, with Briant Wells as King Henry IV and Daniel Murray as Prince Hal. Despite the sprayed-in gray in Wells’ hair and goatee, he and Murray appear to be about the same age. Perhaps they pump up at the same gym too. Wells’ costumes expose his well-toned biceps even when Henry lies in his deathbed, making the sickness hard to believe. And though Murray believably smirks his way through Hal’s early party-boy scenes, his later attempts at drama come out as mere soap opera bubbles.

Falstaff, in this version, becomes an androgynous figure played by Gwenda Deacon. She is jolly enough, with her deep voice and hiccuping laugh, but she comes nowhere near the broken-hearted pathos indicated in Falstaff’s later scenes.

After all the hard drinking and fierce warring of the first half, the speechifying of the second seems to drag. This isn’t Cochran’s fault; it’s inherent in the originals; but it’s troublesome nevertheless. Cochran--the Grove’s artistic director--makes a valiant attempt here, but he falls in battle.

* “Henry IV,” Parts 1 and 2, Grove Theater Center’s Festival Amphitheater, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove. 8:30 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. $16.50-$24.50. (714) 741-9550. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Briant Wells: King Henry IV

Derik Medina: John of Westmoreland, Owen Glendower, Falstaff’s page

Newton Kaneshiro: Lord Warwick, Poins, Lord Vernon

Gwenda Deacon: Falstaff

Daniel Murray: Prince Hal

Archie Lee Simpson: Lord Northumberland, Bardolph, Sir Walter Blunt, Archbishop of York

Steven Opyrchal: Lord Worcester

Daniel Kaemon: Harry Percy, Lord Chief Justice

A Grove Theater Center production. Script by William Shakespeare. Directed and adapted by Kevin Cochran. Fight choreography by Carol Guidry. Sets: Kevin Cochran. Costumes: Terri L. Nista. Lights: David Darwin. Sound design and composition: David Ortega. Production stage manager: Hunter Stevenson.