Repertory in this fashion—featuring not only the same actors in all the plays, but also one set, Donald Eastman's spaciously elegant thrust stage—puts more interpretive responsibility on the cast than a production concept. Poetic lighting (by Jerold Forsyth) and the delicate tinkling of wind chimes create the play's magic, rather than more flashy modern special effects.

Gregg Almquist plays Prospero, the exiled duke who raises daughter Miranda (Elizabeth Mugavero) on an island where they're served by an intriguingly earthy Ariel (Birgit Huppuch) and Zak's nearly naked, bald-headed, white-painted, black-eyed Caliban. Zak's hopping, skittering "thing of darkness," more luminescent alien than fishy beast, brilliantly navigates the thin line between Caliban's amoral malevolence and primitive nobility.

Prospero conjures a shipwreck delivering the noblemen who exiled him—dressed in frippery by designer Vickie Esposito, splendid work—for a showdown, and uses a little conjuring and a lot of reverse psychology to inspire the play's most powerful magic, love, between Prince Ferdinand (a charmingly boyish David Raphaely) and Miranda.

Prospero, often regarded as the playwright's persona as he manipulates characters and events toward a melancholy ending that is often seen as Shakespeare's theatrical farewell, receives a modestly introspective reading from Almquist, more weary than wizardly, complementing the production's simplicity but rendering his relationship with Mugavero's bland Miranda somewhat thin.

One of repertory's benefits is the connection that develops between actors working together in several plays, as revealed in the strong comic performances by Damon Bonetti and Dean Harrison as scheming fops, and Brian McCann and Dan Higbee as slapstick drunkards who enlist Caliban in a hilarious plot to seize power.

PSF's repertory forces the actors and the words to bear the brunt of the storytelling responsibility—quite successfully, in this Tempest. Too bad it has so few performances.

THE TEMPEST Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival Through May 20, 2111 Sansom St., 215-496-8001 or www.phillyshakespeare.org