Nicholas Martin has called ''LLL" Shakespeare's most Chekhovian comedy, and he and set designer Alexander Dodge smartly underscore the sadness beneath the comedy. A central tree sports leaves that suggest fall's turn to winter, for example. And Martin doesn't go to any extra lengths to make up for the lack of a traditional happy ending, which many directors have.
The play, set in Navarre and updated here to the early 20th century, opens with four young aristocratic men swearing off any contact with women while they devote themselves to their studies for a year. When the Princess of France arrives with her three attendants, all bets are off.
What has given audiences problems with the play is the ordinariness of this central octet. There are no havoc-wreaking Pucks or transformative Forests of Arden, just these four confused young men and four fairly dismissive women.
But that, in turn, makes this the playwright's most modern comedy. Shakespeare knew, long before Freud, the dangers not only of bottling up your libido but also of what happens when you take the cap off: in this case, falling head over heels with someone you just met. Berowne, the most irreverent of the four men, is the most skeptical that they will stay masters of their domain for long, which makes him a somewhat Seinfeldian commentator on what's about to follow.
Noah Bean handles that assignment with gusto. Bean caused a sensation five years ago when, as a Boston University graduate, he stepped in at the last moment to play the lead role in ''Philadelphia, Here I Come!" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He was terrific then and he's better now, even if he strains a bit in voice and gesture for exclamation points.
Even funnier is Will LeBow as Don Adriano de Armado, a full-of-himself Spanish character who served as something of a punching bag for Elizabethan audiences. (Remember the Armada?) He and Jeremy Beck as his page, Moth, are a riot, whether shooing away pianist Robert Mollicone or joining some of the local rustics for other antics. Local favorites Neil A. Casey and Bill Mootos are deployed to fine comedic effect in smaller roles.
