A most likable ‘Like It’

The most profound art gambols in “As You Like It,” which opens the Independent Shakespeare Company’s summer season of free performances at Barnsdall Art Park in Hollywood. This full-hearted alfresco reading of William Shakespeare’s deathless comedy has an irresistible sparkle.

Founded in 1998, the company harks back to touring Renaissance troupes. It is actor-managed and ensemble-oriented, and its goal is to illuminate the Bard’s greatest works through textual attention and minimum technical means. In “As You Like It,” which probably first appeared in 1599, it fulfills its mission and surpasses it.

As we settle in our seats and blankets before an open platform -- it gets cold, so dress accordingly -- the cast offers a guitar-accompanied air and plucks the Venetian masks that stud the stage like flowers.

The exit of most of the actors leaves estranged brothers Orlando (the superb Sean Pritchett) and Oliver (quietly vital Hayden Adams) glaring at each other. Oliver departs the stage kicking over a bucket of apples, which launches Orlando’s “As I remember, Adam” to the family’s aging servant (hilarious David Nathan Schwartz), and “As You Like It’s” journey to reconciliation in the Forest of Arden takes flight.

Co-directors Sanford Robbins and Melissa Chalsma, whose exquisite Rosalind is a performance to treasure, honor the play’s populist roots without slighting its wordplay and romance. The forest denizens and the courts of usurping Duke Frederick and his exiled brother register through adroit placement and Rachel Ford Pritchett’s witty costumes, and the narrative development is crystal clear.

Orlando and Rosalind’s relationship unfolds with infinite delicacy, while the rustic complications play with immense gusto. Double-cast as Frederick and the senior Duke, Joseph Culliton creates two different people without blinking. Luis Galindo shifts from foppish Le Beau to a Corin transplanted from Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon.

This is a sidesplitting “As You Like It.” The wholly engaging ensemble tickles our ribs at the wrestling match between Orlando and Charles (Erik Mathew) and touches on every level of comedy thereafter.

Typifying this range are the priceless Celia of Andrea Gwynnel Morgan and David Melville’s hysterical Touchstone, whose slapstick courtship of Audrey (Jennifer Mefford) and repeated encounters with dung are uproarious.

As melancholy Jacques, the terrific Freddy Douglas invests “All the world’s a stage” with wry subtlety. The gender-confusion of Rosalind’s male disguise builds to a marvelous letter scene, with shepherdess Phebe (Aisha Kabia) and smitten Silvius (Matt Hurley) up to the mischief.

Every summer brings quality open-air Shakespeare to Southern California, and this year is no exception. The season has already produced a towering “Antony and Cleopatra” at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum that stands as a benchmark for that venerated theater. This eloquent “As You Like It” is equally a watershed for the Independent Shakespeare Company.

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‘As You Like It’

Where: Barnsdall Art Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

When: 7:30 p.m. Fridays through Sundays (in repertory with “Hamlet”)

Ends: Aug. 13

Price: Free

Contact: (818) 710-6306 or www.independentShakespeare.com

Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes