Mommy dearest: McNair and Welch in Hamlet.

Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed, not published. He gave the people what they wanted — sword fights, murder, ghosts and revenge. He had no idea that his work would one day occupy whole shelves of libraries or that it would become the stuff that academic careers are made on.

This is the Cleveland Shakespeare Festival's 11th season of giving Shakespeare back to the groundlings by offering free performances in parks and various outdoor venues in Northeast Ohio. The formula is a simple one: Stage productions run about two hours — the length of a typical movie. Take Shakespeare into the community so that you reach a younger audience. Start performances early in the evening to take advantage of natural light — like Shakespeare did. This season it's Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard's zany inversion of the same plot.

What's a guy to do when he comes home from college to find his dad dead under suspicious circumstances and his mom married to his uncle (yuck!)? Shakes-peare's Hamlet spent a lot of time thinking about what his next move should be, but Cleveland Shakespeare's Hamlet hops right to it.

Director Dana Hart and artistic director Larry Nehring collaborated to hone this Hamlet down to a snappy two hours and 15 minutes. They're also fortunate to be working with John C. Davis, a professional fight choreographer, who is helping to make those scenes crackle with action. In fact, you might call this a guy's Hamlet. It's a young cast. Claudius in particular is younger than you'd expect. And that adds another dimension to the rivalry between Hamlet and his stepfather.

Dusten Welch as Hamlet has a dark, brooding energy that carries us quickly from scene to scene. Young as he is — and Hamlet is, after all, a student at Wittenberg — his performance has an integrity and economy that compel our attention. He is like a banked fire and we watch intently waiting for a spark to catch.

He is matched against a young Claudius, played by Aaron Elersich, whose thirty-something disdain for his not-so-much younger "son" intensifies the natural rivalry between them. Elersich's Claudius has a dark side that gives weight to Hamlet's suspicions. This is done subtly - beginning with the careless abuse of Hamlet's mother and finally erupting into a violent confrontation with Hamlet in the prayer scene.

Poor Gertrude, played as a simpering, eager-to-please mouse-wife by Tori McNair, is discovering the honeymoon is over. Her eyes track Claudius but her medieval, nun-like headdress suggests that sex was never what the young king had in mind. Hamlet goads Claudius into showing his true self, not just by the way in which he responds to a play — always a weak link in the plot — but by the violent and cowardly rage he indulges when he is thwarted.

Hart has given us new ways to look at a classic, not the least of which is casting a woman as Hamlet's best friend. Lisa Siciliano's Horatio is both forceful and nurturing - not a surprise to those who saw her Kate in last season's Taming of the Shrew. Her delivery is also strong enough to be heard above the ambient noise coming from other parts of the Cuyahoga Falls River Centre mall as well as the nearby highway.

The noise factor changes with each of CSF's seven performance locations. Veteran John Lynch had trouble making his Polonius heard but as the evening progressed and the sound system improved, his eccentric John Barrymore-like courtier was well received by the audience. Steve Madden gave us an aggressive and dynamic Laertes. Erin Barnes was moving in the role of the doomed and innocent Ophelia.

Not dead yet: Branstein and McCardle in Rosencrantz ...

In Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the same cast gathers under Davis's direction to explore the other side of Hamlet's existential dilemma. Allen Branstein, who was last season's Richard III, does a more familiar comic turn as Rosencrantz, with Erin McCardle in the role of the brainier Guildenstern. "Brainy" is, of course, a relative term. Director Davis sees it as Abbott and Costello waiting for Godot.

Casting the talented McCardle as the other half of the comic duo is an engaging gender spin that adds another layer to the comic impasse in which they find themselves. She's brainy and he's zany but neither can remember why they were "sent for." Fragments of scenes from Hamlet happen around them, some wheeled in on a handcart and then wheeled off like floating images in a film.

"Incidents!" laments Branstein in a rare moment of insight. "All we ever get are incidents! Is it too much to ask for a sequence of events?" Chris Bizub as the First Player reassures them that it doesn't matter. We are all caught up in a story of some kind and our end is the same regardless. "No matter how many compasses, there's only one direction."

The script is full of word play and pithy aphorisms as well as plenty of comic business and strong ensemble work from the players. And there's that one wonderful moment when the ship carrying Hamlet to England is boarded by pirates. (Did you hear that, ground-lings — pirates!)

The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival was founded by CWRU graduates who wanted Cleveland to have its own "Shakespeare in the Park." Larry Nehring was a member of the original company and he's served as artistic director since 2000. He'll step down at the end of this season. While the board searches for his replacement, they'll also be looking for the funds to create a salaried position. Otherwise their way of operating should remain the same.

Moving from park to park will always be an important part of their mission or, as Dana Hart explained at a recent fundraiser, "Cleveland doesn't have a Central Park but we aspire to put a gem on every link of that emerald necklace."

You can see Hamlet on Saturdays and R&G on Sundays at 7 p.m. through Aug. 3 at these locations: July 12 and 13, Penitentiary Glen Nature Center, Kirtland; July 19 and 20, Shaker Heights Colonnade, Shaker Heights; July 26 and 27, Stocker Center for the Arts, Elyria; and Aug. 2 and 3, Tremont's Lincoln Park Gazebo, Cleveland.

Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead: The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival. Various locations through Aug. 3. Free.