Shortly before Fire Island season begins for some of us, "Fire Island" comes to us, courtesy of Charles Mee's theater piece/performance piece/event, directed by Kevin Cunningham and offered, in multimedia, by 3-Legged Dog at its Art & Technology Center, a bit below Ground Zero, from Thursdays to Saturdays through May 10.

Images of Fire Island, taped in Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines last summer, appear on video screens surrounding the audience, as we lounge on reclining seats, barrels of beer and soda at hand. On the screens, we see the sun on the waves, the beach, the walks, a spider web, flowers, deer, a monarch butterfly, a kite, the stars and the moon. People appear on the screens and, suddenly, they're in front of us as well, pairing off, arguing, and frolicking. They combine in couples male-female, female-female, and male-male. People decide to start relationships after a day's acquaintance or fight about why their relationships won't work out, they barbecue, and they air inane theories and rules-such as cicadas were people once, there's a link between meat-eating and menstruation, and a conversation about tea and herbs cannot admit any discussion of fruit.

A woman (Tina Alexis Allen) sits beside us, applies sunscreen, borrows my pen, skims the Village Voice and bursts into tears reading a personal ad. Earlier, she walks around the theater wielding a knife and, on screen, prepares a meal, using the same knife. The man she refuses to form an alliance with (Stephen Payne) confronts her again and runs off, in hot pursuit, as soon as some cutie leans over and rubs her ass for him or flashes him. A woman refuses another woman, who rhapsodizes about her nude body, but, when both are singing wordlessly, microphones in hand, with the musicians, flirts, at a distance, with the woman beside me.

An almost scary-looking clown introduces himself to us as Gautham Prasad, waves pompoms on his clown suit lewdly at a man, seats himself on a woman's lap, makes music with Tuvan throat singer Albert Kuvezin, come all the way from Russia, and stalks a woman (Allison Keating). He returns, after she flees, triumphantly announcing, "I've got the dress!" A group tosses the dress about. Gautham twirls a rainbow umbrella. The woman presses his red clown nose and they make peace.

An older man and woman (Autumn Weisz) fight bitterly over a particular spot on the beach. Harmony reigns as they recall Fritz Reiner leading the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival.

A group snorts coke in front of the musicians. A man and woman, lounging in the Meat Rack, decide they'll have public sex on Long Island. A photographer-a voyeur?-lurks around the edges. A man in black, (Joshua Koehn), with chains and studs, circulates among us, making poetic and sometimes abusive speeches. "It's a man of feeling talking to you," he insists.

There's a pool party on videotape, with most of the actors we've seen in attendance. A Fellini-esque bevy of queens (including Darrell Wynn) cavorts on the beach and then joins the pool party. Suddenly, the party is in our midst.

The "Fire Island" company consists of 108 performers. A couple of familiar faces from Fire Island turn up in the videos as well.

Tickets for "Fire Island," at $30, 15 for students, are available by calling 212/352-3101 or visiting www.3LDNYC.org. Performances, at 80 Greenwich Street, at Rector Street, begin at 8 pm.