[In the following review, Brantley praises Mary Zimmerman's production of Measure for Measure at the New York Shakespeare Festival for its straightforward and simple presentation.]

It is alarming, you must admit, to see a grown man suddenly discover that he has a sex drive. Billy Crudup takes us through such a moment with appalled eyes and gritted teeth in the spry new production of Measure for Measure in Central Park. And while Mr. Crudup is a handsome fellow, it is definitely not a pretty scene.

The rising star of films like Almost Famous and Jesus' Son, Mr. Crudup plays Angelo, lord deputy of Vienna and super-prig of all time, the sort of person, it is said, who will “scarce confess that his blood flows.”

But Angelo has just met Isabella, the comely sister of a man he has condemned to death for fornication, and suddenly the lord deputy's blood is rushing like Niagara. You can actually see a reluctant blush creep over this actor's dead-white cheeks. Rigid with surprise and self-revulsion, he wipes his folded lips with the back of his hand, as though to erase in advance any illicit kisses. What's an angry young puritan to do? For Mr. Crudup's Angelo looks to be barely out of his teens, and nature will always have her way with the young.

The Measure for Measure that was to open last night beneath open skies at the Delacorte Theater under the direction of Mary Zimmerman happily makes the point that nature is not to be denied. It seemed appropriate that seconds before the play began in a recent preview an oriole flitted across the stage, and that immediately after a white egret preened conspicuously in the pond behind.

And how obliging of all the birds who sang a noisy accompaniment to Shakespeare's winged words throughout most of the evening. For Ms. Zimmerman and her designers have chosen not to compete with the green outdoors but to take advantage of it. The keynote of Daniel Ostling's delightful set is the image of two fat leafy trees in mesh enclosures.

When you look beyond to the teeming verdure of the park itself, it seems silly to put a tree in a cage. Those souls in old Vienna who would try to pretend that man doesn't take part in seasonal efflorescence obviously haven't got a chance.

Thus does this Measure for Measure, the first of the summer offerings from the New York Shakespeare Festival, set up a determinedly optimistic frame for Shakespeare's most bizarrely sour work. This story of corruption, deception and hypocrisy has been described by Coleridge as “the only painful play” in the canon and more recently by Harold Bloom as Shakespeare's nihilistic farewell to comedy.

But Ms. Zimmerman, who provided a blithe take on the comparably disturbing All's Well That Ends Well in Chicago several years ago, is having none of this. Her response to the so-called problem plays seems to be simply: “Problems? What problems?” Rather than look for psychological consistency in the contradictions of tone, she accepts these works at face value as fables.

Mr. Bloom may see anticipations of the Marquis de Sade in Measure for Measure; Ms. Zimmerman prefers to stress its affinities with the Brothers Grimm. Deconstructing fairy tales may provide insights, but Ms. Zimmerman appears to believe that it also kills the magic.

Her Measure for Measure may not be magic of the highest order. You can get away with ignoring this comedy's essential darkness for only so long. While there are charming individual performances—especially from Sanaa Lathan as an Isabella worth sinning for and Daniel Pino as her life-loving brother—only Mr. Crudup seems to be working beneath the surface of things.

Still, Ms. Zimmerman's decision to emphasize the big metaphysical picture over authentic emotional detail pays off. What after all do you want from an alfresco entertainment on a June night, when nuanced interpretation can be lost in the drone of passing airplanes? In focusing on a grand scheme that makes fools of prudes and tyrants, and choosing the comic over the grim whenever possible, the production makes Shakespeare's notoriously unpleasant play pass by quite pleasantly.

Not surprisingly, this Measure avoids the specifically seamy visions of decadent Vienna common to recent versions (whores and their customers rife with syphilitic tics and chancres; people trussed up in black leather). Those debauchees may snort cocaine and wear mirrored glasses, but they tend to be about as sinister as the conniving animals in old Warner Brothers cartoons.

The play's gallery of vices is embodied with friendly exaggeration. Pompey the panderer (the agreeable Christopher Evan Welch) is most notable for his boot-licking sycophancy.

John Pankow plays the cynical Lucio with a cape-swirling swagger that makes him close kin to Nathan Lane's Max Bialystock. Elbow, the malaprop-dropping constable, is rendered by Tom Aulino a la Don Knotts as Deputy Barney Fife.

There are inspired quick sketches of the madam, Mistress Overdone, played by Julia Gibson as a blowsy, cigarette-winded working girl, and of a nervous, briefcase-clutching john named Froth by Daniel Pearce. And Herb Foster and Christopher Donahue, as men of state, offer lovely soft-spoken performances that capture the essence of the moderation the play advocates.

The crisply spoken Joe Morton has the pivotal and impossible role of the duke, Vincentio, who hands the reigns of power to Angelo so that the duke may roam the city in priestly disguise. Looked at realistically, Vincentio is one sick puppy, a sadistic puppeteer of his subjects. Mr. Morton and Ms. Zimmerman present him instead as a smooth master of ceremonies, responsible for moving the characters into their assigned places, whose worst sin is vanity.

Like Angelo, Mr. Morton's Vincentio registers instantly that he is smitten by Isabella, the novitiate. And with Ms. Lathan in the role who wouldn't be? She's a luscious, unaffected creature, only half aware of and frightened by her attractiveness. She is also without the usual cargo of neuroses. Mr. Crudup takes care of that side of things all by himself.

Yet there is room for hope for even Angelo in this Measure. He is after all so young, and when he tries to seduce Isabella, it's with the stiff, fumbling gestures of a boy who has only just learned what a girl is. You figure that with time, he too may learn the importance of naturally doing what comes naturally.