This ‘As You Like It’ is easy to like

“As You Like It” isn’t Shakespeare’s tidiest play. It can’t seem to decide whether it’s a comedy or a drama, and it has an annoying tendency to, out of nowhere, alter characters’ personalities.

Perhaps a bit of messiness in inevitable, however, when attempting to cram so much of human nature into one story.

No matter. All challenges are handily met in an inventive, emotionally resonant new staging at A Noise Within.

The story begins in a usurped duchy, where, in parallel story lines, brothers have turned against brothers. As rendered by Sibyl Wickersheimer (set) and Jim Taylor (lights), it’s an inhospitable place built of sharp, machine-tooled geometries and shrouded in darkness but for a single band of light -- a quite literal ray of hope.

Director Michael Michetti makes sure the audience feels that ray’s warmth early on, in the sunny affection that Celia (Ali Ahn) shows for her cousin, Rosalind (Kirsten Potter), the banished duke’s daughter, and in the fatherly care that the elderly servant Adam (Robert Towers) bestows on Orlando (Mark Deakins), who is mistreated by his elder brother.

When the increasingly oppressive atmosphere at court spurs these characters to take refuge in the forest, the environment transforms to the warm, earthy tones of the Arts and Crafts movement. (Angela Balogh Calin’s frilly yet crisp costumes similarly hint at the latter 1800s.) The woods prove to be a transformative place where the kindly characters become ever more trustworthy and the mean ones discover their better natures. The abruptness of some changes is artfully explained by Michetti’s addition of a woodland spirit (Andy Butterfield) who, somewhat like Puck in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” playfully intervenes in human affairs.

Michetti uses the furry-legged, Pan-like creature to help fill other gaps in logic as well (watch closely to better understand why Rosalind doesn’t just come out and introduce herself to her father, who’s also living in the woods).

As the story settles into the natural world, it turns toward coupling and commitment. Back at court, Rosalind and Orlando fell in love at first sight. When they encounter each other again in the forest, Orlando doesn’t recognize Rosalind in her protective disguise as a man. So she puts their feelings to the test by playacting the part of a pal who tries to tease Orlando out of his romantic yearnings.

It’s a joy to watch Potter’s Rosalind settle ever more confidently into herself -- girlish giggles giving way to quiet serenity -- as Deakins’ Orlando clings resolutely to his love.

daryl.miller@latimes.com

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‘As You Like It’

Where: A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale

When: 8 tonight; in repertory, contact theater for schedule

Ends: Dec. 2

Price: $34 and $38

Contact: (818) 240-0910, Ext. 1; www.anoisewithin.org

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes