Trees overhang the stage’s vast wooden structures and actors enter and exit via dirt paths that slope off steeply into the surrounding forests. These people could put whatever they wanted on this stage — scrap metal, garage-sale furniture, soiled dishrags — and it would look pretty.

Now imagine what it’s like when they perform Shakespeare. And not just any Shakespeare, but “Hamlet.” In a word, it’s awesome, imperfections and all.

Capably directed by Ellen Geer, this well-staged production of “Hamlet” tries its best to master both stage and play. Such a task is tremendous but also, in the best productions, invisible. Not so much here. In fact, the constant labor to make the Shakespeare seem effortless, although it does not succeed, might actually strengthen the overall effect. There is a struggle evident in this performance from the very first line — a struggle to figure this whole thing out and do the impossible. Perhaps it is no accident that this struggle mirrors Hamlet’s own.

There can be no understating the importance of Hamlet to “Hamlet.” Possibly mad, certainly maddening, he is the play, the other characters merely satellites, far-flung planets rotating around one of literature’s most famous sons. In a clever move, Theatricum double casts its Hamlet, alternating company mainstays Jeff Wiesen and Mike Peebler in the role. On their off-nights, they play Laertes to the other’s Hamlet, a nod to the parallel storylines of the two characters.

On Saturday night, Wiesen helmed the production, and to exciting effect. His Hamlet, like the production as a whole, takes its time to get good — we might say Wiesen procrastinates as badly as his character — but the payoff is worth the wait. His reading of “O what a rogue and peasant slave am I,” when Hamlet mourns his own inertia and lack of readiness, is his finest moment, but his other soliloquies are no routine recitations either.

Indeed, this particular cut of the play — a brisk two and a half hours — seems built around Hamlet’s soliloquies. Because the Fortinbras subplot and the Player-King speech are, for once, retained, we are treated to the full soliloquies, including the normally omitted “How all occasions do inform against me.” Wiesen likes to telegraph his intention to soliloquize with a certain deepening of voice and broadening of gesture, but the effect is actually pleasing, as if his Hamlet is almost aware of his own significance.     

Peebler’s Laertes is strong-willed and passionate. Willow Geer is a standout as Ophelia, Hamlet’s spurned lover who falls first into madness and then, intentionally or not, into a brook. Her flower scene is restrained but transfixing. Laertes’s brandishing one of the discarded flowers as a mock-sword in a later scene is a nice touch.

The rest of the cast is mostly creditable. Susan Angelo plays Gertrude’s regality and dullness well, and Claudius is finally the smiling villain he should be with Aaron Hendry in the role, although he flubs a few lines. Carl Palmer’s Polonius, Ophelia’s sententious, foolish father, has moments of comedic gold and others of banality. Alan Blumenfeld gets a few laughs out of his Gravedigger. Stefan Tabencki should loosen up his stilted Horatio. It might help if they got him out of that wraparound bed sheet. (But otherwise, Val Miller’s costumes are well-conceived and proper.)

Geer keeps her actors moving around the stage. At its worst — the court scenes — the blocking looks unplanned, but at its best — the first ghost scene — the staging is striking and memorable. Although many productions will cast the same actor as Claudius and the ghost, perhaps to put Hamlet’s sanity in doubt, Geer does not. Still, Weisen’s Hamlet has small moments of what look like real madness. This might be a contradiction, or merely an effort to complicate what is otherwise a relatively straightforward, blessedly unexperimental reading of the play. 

But if for nothing else, visit Theatricum Botanicum for the experience. Seeing this place alone is worth the price — $32 for the best seats (or $20 for students). Watching these talented performers navigate this world feels like an added bonus. Lesser companies might get lost in such a magnificent setting, or let it take them over, but not these actors. This is their second home; they walk its well-worn surfaces with sureness. 

To reach Jason Kehe, click here.