The Island of Slaves

Last night I attended a FREE dress rehearsal of the Lee Center's Island of Slaves. We were warned at the beginning that because it was a dress rehearsal the cast may have to stop at some point, but that never occurred.
The story begins when two men wake up on an island to discover that their ship has wrecked and they are stranded. Harlequin is the servant of Iphicrates and the two come to realize that they have landed on the Island of Slaves. A place where masters are either killed or enslaved and servants rule. They are soon joined by a man who repeatedly plays the guitar and breaks into song and acts as a kind of enforcer of the laws of the island. He makes the men switch clothes and explains their new roles on the island. He does the same to an upper class woman and her maid and then sends them to live on the island as such for 3 years.
The comedy bits got a few laughs but overall I was bored by the amount of repetitive dialogue. The story was originally conceived in 1725 as a kind of preemptive commentary on the French Revolution. So the amount of dialogue makes sense. The whole thing ends with an appeal to the audience and a kind of moral message to treat others as you would be treated. Or as the final all cast musical number would put it, "Who do you think you are?"
However the audience participation was somewhat lost on me as the message just seemed kind of outdated in lieu of more useful messages. I cannot imagine why.......1725. It ran for 2 hours with an oddly timed intermission that came about 20 minutes before the ending rather than in the middle. Most of the time I had no clue what the songs were about, for lack of being able to clearly decipher the words. The highlights were the costumes and the three background island girls who had really cute color coordinated outfits. Otherwise I was mostly bored.