WOOSTER GROUP PUTS ON QUITE THE RACKET WITH ``BIRDIE!''.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

THE BIRDIE in ``To You, the Birdie!'' is a reference to a badminton shuttlecock, not the raised middle finger L.A. motorists employ with such abandon, although audiences at the Freud Playhouse might be pardoned for thinking the New York-based Wooster Group is flipping us off.

``Birdie!'' - completing its U.S. tour at UCLA - is anything but viewer- friendly. It's loud, jarring, affected beyond measure and seriously selndulgent. Technically masterful and possessed of all the group's signature sound and video frippery, the production suggests we may be closer to the age of video game as theater than anyone ever imagined. That's not a good thing. And it's ironic, given that ``Birdie's'' source material is the ancient Greeks.

Make that twice-filtered Euripides. ``Birdie!'' is based on the late Paul Schmidt's translation of Racine's ``Phedre,'' the tale of a queen's tragic love for her stepson and its kingdom-desecrating consequences. How we've progressed from the stuff of dusty college textbooks to the sliding video screens, overlapped recorded dialogue and - I kid you not - poison enemas of ``To You, the Birdie!'' is a question only the Woosters and director Elizabeth LeCompte can answer.

Clearly societal decadence and decay are on the menu. As Hippolytos (played by Ari Fliakos) and Theramenes (Scott Shepherd) lace up their feet for a turbo-charged badminton match, a strategically placed screen catches, via stop action, their every genital scratch and grope. Jim Findlay's silver and glass set - specially configured on the rear of the Freud stage - is a chilly hybrid of tennis court and nursing ward where you can practically smell the Lysol. Anytime something falls off the stage to the rear, we hear a slurpy splashing sound as though the kingdom abuts a spa. Or the ocean.

Queen Phedre (Kate Valk) is dying, decomposing actually, out of love for Hippolytos who, alas, doesn't return her affection. Phedre's throne is a wheelchair with a toilet seat. When she stands, it's to try on countless pairs of shoes. Her minions and nurse Oenone (Sheena See) attend to every quiver and belch, the more graphic and unseemly, the better. News of the death of King Theseus (Willem Dafoe) may mean that Phedre will get her wish if Hippolytos and the gods cooperate. This being a tragedy, they don't.

Valk, Dafoe and all the rest actually do very little talking. Much of the dialogue is recorded, with Shepard providing snarky extra commentary, male and female. The performers do a lot of contorting, shivering and posing. And birdie smashing. The initial match between Hippolytos and Theramenes lasts about five minutes. The entire play - exhibition, actually - is 80.

What is it about the Greeks, I wonder, that makes high concept artists like the Woosters and their ilk prone to such wholesale futzing? Granted, Euripides' tale should make for a point of departure, but is the Woosterian techno-slickness really meant to appeal to anything beyond our appreciation for gadgetry and machinery?

I'm reminded of the aborted play within a play in Chekhov's ``The Seagull.'' Konstantin, who, if he were alive and working in New York would doubtless be a Wooster Group alumnus, brings down the curtain in disgust when he senses that he is playing to an audience of philistines. He may be right, but it doesn't make his entertainment any more palatable.

TO YOU, THE BIRDIE! - Two stars

Where: Freud Playhouse, UCLA campus, Westwood.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Sunday.

Tickets: $15 to $60. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Greek tragedy with lots of noise, pretension and badminton.

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Scott Shepherd, left, and Ari Fliakos star in the Wooster Group's badminton-infused ``To You, the Birdie!'' at UCLA.