WASHINGTON (Map, News) - “Caveat emptor.” (Latin for “Let the buyer beware.”)

Normally, the inauguration of a new theater company is cause for congratulations, but when said debut combines one of Shakespeare’s weakest scripts with an amateurish presentation like dog & pony dc’s production of “Cymbaline” does, a warning is more appropriate. This show is so infuriatingly bad that calling it a turkey would be an insult to Thanksgiving.

The plot is so convoluted that it is almost impossible to summarize it. Suffice it to say that Imogen, daughter of Cymbaline, King of Briton, defies his demands to marry her evil stepmother’s son Cloten and weds her true love, Postumus, instead. Needless to say, her father is not pleased and banishes Postumus, setting into motion a typically Shakespearean cycle of deceptions, disguises and double-crosses.

The actors involved — JJ Area, Jim Gagne, Rachel Grossman, Wendy Nogales, Becky Peters, Lorraine Ressegger and Christine Sullivan — might have talent, but it’s difficult to tell here because they’ve been hobbled by Wyckham Avery’s inept direction. Without a doubt, Avery’s most insanely self-indulgent directorial conceit is to have the actors exchange roles from scene to scene, thus rendering a story that is already difficult to follow virtually incomprehensible.

Since the actors are working without props, sets or costumes, Avery assigns each character an exaggerated pose that supposedly makes it possible to identify who they are no matter which actor is assuming the role, a hackneyed idea that quickly wears out its welcome. It also doesn’t help that the cast has been encouraged to camp up their performances in an annoyingly smarmy cartoon-like manner. (A minimalist approach to staging Shakespeare can work if everybody involved is at the top of their game, but that certainly isn’t the case here.)

Touted in their press release as “the Shakespeare story no one knows performed in a style no one has ever seen,” dog & pony dc’s “Cymbaline” is an unprofessional travesty that no one in their right mind would voluntarily subject themselves to.