Photo By Rich Sofranko

Kate Berry (left) and Corinne Mohlenhoff use their charms for comic results at CSF.

The Love's Labour's Lost launching 11th season of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival (CSF) is among the most continuously and consistently funny productions of a Shakespearean comedy I've seen. Anywhere. Not merely amusing. Not dryly witty. Not brittle or droll. For much of its three-hour-plus passage across CSF's stage this show is kick-ass funny. It is also the most consistently conceived and focused directorial work I've seen by CSF's third artistic leader, Brian Isaac Phillips. He selected a feisty pace and a firecracker pitch, then elicited rocket-fueled performances from his 15-member cast.

Funny though it is, however, this production is not without issues. Hewing so tightly to the gasp-and-get-on-with-it pace and three-alarm level of performance is the primary problem. Too few respites. Too little opportunity for contemplation. Imagine spending three hours with The Three Stooges. Only there are 15 of them.

Another problem is that the script, flimsy and obvious though it is, becomes more victim of than vehicle for the comedy. This is early Shakespeare. Some scholars date it to 1589, when the playwright was 25. Neither its language nor its thought rise to the magnificence of As You Like It or Twelfth Night, but it has its pleasures for the ear, many of which are mangled in the rush.

The plot of Love's Labour's Lost is not victimized by the production. That falls victim to its own shallow silliness. Four titled youths, one of them King of Navarre, vow to eschew all worldly pleasures, especially women, for three years while they devote themselves to the pursuit of erudition. The King goes so far as to banish all females from his court and from the countryside for a mile around. That afternoon they have to amend their vows when a Princess of France and, conveniently, three luscious ladies-in-waiting arrive on a diplomatic mission, disposed of in a dozen lines of dialogue.

By morning the four sillies have fallen hopelessly, haplessly in love with the four ladies that they've foresworn their vows altogether. Tangled up with this are two streams of bumpkin humor which Phillips and his actors make mirthful but are, at heart, too tedious to describe.

It's no surprise that this script ranks among the least of Shakespeare's accomplishments. Beyond performances in Shakespeare's time, it did not reappear onstage until 1839, more than two centuries later. And seldom since, except in Shakespeare companies that set out to present the entire 36-play canon over a number of seasons. (CSF tackles another seldom-shown script next spring, Troilus and Cressida.)

Phillips has plunked this drivel down in the 1960s -- the psychedelic '60s. Well, there are some '60s symbols on view in Heidi Jo Schiemer's costuming and Erik Morris' clunky set: go-go boots, a fringed vest and some tie-died banners, along with some '60s music covering scene changes and a joint that snaps in and out of view.

But the rest of the show is about as psychedelic as chicken noodle soup. No grunge. No spit. No spite. It replicates thinly the make-out frenzy on the surface of the '60s but lacks even hints of the roiling political fury that peace, love, pot and music blanketed. Not surprising since the CSF cast, crew and management is too young to have experienced the '60s other than in old photos and revivals of Woodstock.

Still, despite all that, this Love's Labour's Lost is one of the funniest evenings of Shakespeare you're likely to encounter. Liveliest among the lively cast are Jeremy Dubin (Navarre), Nancy Eyermann (Rosaline) and Joshua Neth (Moth). As the French princess Corrine Mohlenhoff is breathy and rushed and the usually true-targeted Chris Guthrie takes his bumpkin so far over the top that the character blunts out. Matt Johnson as a vainglorious Spaniard is, as usual, too much, but this time so is everybody else. Grade: B

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LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST continues at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival through Oct. 3.