After a mostly silent summer, New Theatre is back in business with some season-launching Shakespeare.

As You Like It, adapted by artistic director Ricky J. Martinez and staged by Roberto Prestigiacomo, features a cast of 14 (huge by small regional theater standards), some nicely detailed performances and an array of colorful costumes that almost make up for a barren shell of a set.

Written at the start of the 17th century, As You Like It isn't the greatest of William Shakespeare's comedies, to put it mildly. But with its familial villains, a clever heroine in drag, a wisely witty fool and more, the play and this production achieve Shakespeare's aim: They entertain.

The play takes place in the palace of the volatile Duke Frederick (James Samuel Randolph) and the nearby Forest of Arden, to which those who rile the duke inevitably flee. Frederick has already banished his elder brother, Duke Senior (Stephen Neal), but has allowed Senior's beautiful daughter Rosalind (Elise Girardin) to remain as a companion to Frederick's own daughter, Celia (Katherine Michelle Tanner).

But before you can say ''hair-trigger temper,'' Frederick has ordered Rosalind and Orlando (Cliff Burgess), a young man who has become instantly smitten with her, into the woods. Rosalind, disguised as a boy, and Celia, dressed down so that her high-born status won't show, hot-foot it into Arden.

Amongst the trees, love is everywhere. The fool Touchstone (Joshua David Robinson) woos a pretty-but-thick maid named Audrey (Jessa Thomas). The shepherd Silvius (David Sirois) is mad for the unreceptive Phebe (Betsy Graver), who only has eyes for the disguised Rosalind. Late in the action, Orlando's formerly evil elder brother Oliver (Christopher Vicchiollo) falls for Celia. And Orlando finds himself trading witticisms with the slender lad who looks so much like Rosalind.

Predictably, all's well that ends well, meaning the love-struck end up with the partners that fit them, the evil duke repents and Rosalind's father is restored to power. Sweet, but the fun comes from the twists and turns and comedic frustrations along the way to happily ever after.

Though a few of the actors could be accused of scenery chewing (if there were any scenery to chew), director Prestigiacomo gets solid performances from the leads -- Randolph and Neal are more-than-capable veterans of New Theatre's forays into the Shakespearean canon -- along with effective comedic turns from Clint Hooper as the dig-my-melancholy Jaques, Odell Rivas as a foppish Le Beau, Wayne E. Robinson as the long-suffering Adam and, particularly, Robinson as the frisky Touchstone.

Burgess plays Orlando as a standard-issue hero, easily handling the language and his character's lovesick state. Girardin, who could stand to crank up the volume a bit, is nonetheless an enchanting Rosalind -- smart, strong, fleetingly vulnerable and altogether the sort of woman who could make not just Orlando, but anyone believe in love at first sight.

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