In the mood for a wedding anyone?

Houston is about to get a hefty dose of Big Love. No, not the HBO series, but the insanely entertaining Charles Mee play of the same name, opening tomorrow night at University of Houston School of Theatre & Dance.

Mee, famous for adding his own spin on ancient texts, goes to town on the theme of love, gender, marriage, and dare I say, murder. He's also famous for making his plays available on his website. Go ahead and read the play here.

The playwright, a bit of a hip-hop mixmaster, samples epic and contemporary genres to create his particular brand of zaniness. And what's more fun, he welcomes no holds barred treatments of his work.

I became a Mee geek when I saw Infernal Bridegroom Production's Full Circle in 2005. After last season's bobrauschenbergamerica at UH, it's official, I'm a total Mee freak. It's no wonder, his work is sprawling in ideas, images, and possibilities, and this play is a virtual gold mine of potential.

UH School of Theatre & Dance Director Steven W. Wallace has assembled an interesting creative team, including noted freelance director Leslie Swackhamer, fight director Brian Byrnes, choreographer Teresa Chapman and set designer Travis Horstmann.

Based on The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus, Big Love follows the rebellion of fifty brides against their arranged marriages to fifty grooms. Imagine the men are from Mars women are from Venus debate on steroids. Dishes crash, pianos pound, wedding cakes disintegrate, women shriek, couples dance, knives fly, bodies slam, grooms swing across the airspace, weapons detonate, blood flows, riots ensue and carnage mounts. And there's even a little Cirque du Soleil action on the silks.

Did I mention this is a love story?

Swackhamer, who has directed at Stages Repertory Theatre, University of Texas, Rice University and Cleveland Play House, calls her team the "merry makers of mayhem." Her style often involves a certain level of physicality, so Big Love's action sequences are a natural fit. Dance, acrobatics and various forms of combat are all part of the mix.

"Rehearsals are like a mad scientist's lab," she says, holding a gaggle of mangled barbie dolls. "Brian and Theresa riff on each other's ideas and it's a true collaboration."

Alley Theatre company member David Rainey and former Houston Ballet dancer Krissy Richmond perform alongside UH theater and dance students. Rainey plays Piero and Leo.

Byrnes, Head of Undergraduate Programs and Associate Professor, revels in the wildness of the action. At one point I asked Byrnes if there was anything that was not in the play. He said he would get back to me. Simply put, Big Love invites a kitchen sink approach. "It's big, bold choices," Byrnes says, with a wild look in his eyes, as he shows me all the clever ways blood spills.

If a sword swings in Houston, chances are Byrnes is behind it; he is a certified teacher of stage combat and SAFD Fight Master. Mee's play has been a virtual playground of Byrnes' talents.

"Some of the violence in this play is epic in proportion. It's quite amazing how dangerous simple cutlery can be," he says, lifting a white cake knife. "Some things are happening in this show that I have never done before. It's pretty visceral."

Teresa Chapman, Assistant Professor of Dance, delights in adding some snazzy dance steps to Mee's bacchanalian romp and working closely with Swackhamer. The wackiness factor is out of the park. Chapman is partial to the scene when Oed gets killed with a blender knife while Olympia plays bass guitar on the piano during the slaughter scene.

"Leslie asked for wedding kill fest to 'Queen of Sheba' followed by the punk version of 'White Wedding,' then went Martha Graham's 'Heretic' merged with Pina Bausch's 'Rite of Spring.' How fun is that?," Chapman says. "I've been able to borrow from multiple genres to sculpt each dance."

Horstmann's set conjures a Maxfield Parish painting. A brightly patterned floor hints at an Italian villa, while Greek columns stand next to a hanging disco ball. "I wanted a sense of destination, an otherworldly place evocative of the Greeks," Swackhamer says.

If you are new to Mee, Big Love might be just the entry point to his classics-crashing-full-speed-into-now world. "It's bizarrely operatic, yet the play goes to the core of what it is to be human and then takes it to Mount Olympus," Swackhamer says. "Hopefully, you will get a sense of Greek grandness."

"It's blood, guts and gory glory."

Big Love

Feb. 26-27, March 4-6 at 8 p.m.

Feb. 28, March 7 at 2 p.m.

Wortham Theatre

No one under 14 admitted.