A 'COMEDY' TO IMPRESS THE BARD HIMSELF.

Byline: Katherine Karlin Theater Critic

IT'S AN ODDITY of American culture that transplanted pleasures like Italian opera or French country cooking - arts that belong to all people in their native lands - here become the property of elitist snobs. Maybe this is a general insecurity we have; for culture to have true cachet, only the very rich and very erudite should appreciate it.

Take William Shakespeare. He wrote his plays for crowded theaters in which people from all sectors of society could mingle and emote. Great passions, petty jealousies, high drama, low humor - these stories are built for entertainment. The New York-based Aquila Theatre Company honors this tradition.

Their production of Shakespeare's ``Comedy of Errors,'' presented by the Shakespeare Festival/LA, is a full-throttle performance, including music, mime, slapstick, acrobatics, conjuring, human puppetry and belly dancing. At one point, two characters, apropos of nothing, break into song; at another, a pair of lovers engage in a delicious tango.

The story involves two sets of twins who were separated at birth. Antipholus of Syracuse and his faithful slave, Dromio, arrive at the port of Ephesus, where, unknown to them, an identical Antipholus and Dromio make their home. In the course of a hectic day, love is lost and found, there are arrests, chases, misunderstandings and general mayhem before all ends happily. Director Robert Richmond has trimmed the play slightly to run a brisk two hours without sacrificing either comedy or story line.

In his staging, the richness of the action resembles a circus - and that's a compliment. On the premise that we are all distracted by bright, shiny objects, Richmond at every moment gives us several distractions to gaze upon, from a tree made of wicker baskets to colorful cabanas (the designers are Richmond and his collaborator Peter Meineck) that sway and dance and are characters in their own right. Actors wordlessly pop up like jack-in-the-boxes on the stage's edge to respond to the central dialogue. Characters leap, tumble, slither and roll. They even provide their own sound effects.

The flashy direction, of course, would amount to nothing if it weren't for the expressive range and athletic grace of the leading actors, Richard Willis, who plays the two Antipholuses - or is it Antipholi? - and Louis Butelli serving double duty as Dromio and Dromio. While they don't exactly make their antics look easy, they certainly appear to be having fun, and their technique is so polished we never lose sight of which twin we're watching.

Sure, there are props: the boys from Syracuse wear glasses, and their Ephesus counterparts do not. But Willis and Butelli convey with the slightest gestures and facial expressions the full weight of their characters' idiosyncrasies, and even scrambling across the stage in an extended Keystone Kops pursuit, they slip in and out of the twins' personae seamlessly.

Also on hand is Lisa Carter as Adriana, the glamorous and frustrated wife of the Ephesus twin. Carter uses her long body like taut guitar string, and impressively catches - literally - her co-star in her arms. Lindsay Rae Taylor is Adriana's love-struck sister, Luciana, interpreted here as an awkward schoolgirl. It's a characterization Taylor overdoes a bit: Because of her mugging, we almost lose the power of the play's single love scene, which Willis, for his part, plays beautifully.

The other roles (and they are diverse) are stunningly shouldered by Lincoln Hudson, Andrew Schwartz and Heather Murdock. The costumes, which are supposed to evoke the 1930s, are unobtrusive. Most successful are the color-coded outfits of the twins, who get a lot of mileage out of undoing a few buttons or pulling their shirttails out.

The production wrapped up its run at the Plaza at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels downtown, but continues at the South Coast Botanic Garden. Unfortunately, the miked sound at the Cathedral got a little muddy at times, but this might have been inevitable. More important, though, was the free and open seating in the Plaza. Shakespeare would have approved.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS - Three and one half stars

Where: South Coast Botanic Garden, 26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes.

When: 8 p.m. today through Sunday.

Tickets: $18. Call [phone] or visit www.shakespearefestivalla.org.

In a nutshell: Shakespeare the way it's meant to be.

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The Aquila Theatre Company incorporates slapstick, song, mime, puppetry, magic and even belly dancing into its production of ``The Comedy of Errors'' at the South Coast Botanic Garden.