In the hands of certain directors, contemporary productions of Shakespeare can become something far greater than the sum of their parts. Mark Wing-Davey is one of those directors, and his take on Pericles, the latest production at Berkeley Rep, is nothing short of a delight.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a play not often produced and not well loved among Shakespeare scholars, who call it a trivial picaresque (an adventure tale centering on a single hero) and not befitting of Shakespeare's more sophisticated body of work — many scholars believe, actually, that the whole first half of the play was written by someone else, likely George Wilkins who was a member of Shakespeare's troupe, the King's Men, and was also an innkeeper and petty criminal. But Wing-Davey was attracted to the episodic, comic-book-like mode of the play which made it one of the more popular plays in Shakespeare's own lifetime. He calls it "a jewel of a piece," and adds, "I quite [like] the paganism of it all."

That paganism comes in the form of bawdy sex, an evil queen, a plot line centering on a whorehouse, and a woman brought back to life after being dead, or near dead, for days floating in a coffin on the sea. The play centers on Pericles (played with brilliant humor by David Barlow), a prince in his own home of Tyre who sets off on an adventure after his life is threatened by a king in a nearby city. He wins the hand in marriage of a woman, Thaisa, only to have her die (or appear to die) in childbirth while at sea. He gives his newborn daughter to the queen of Tarsus, whom he knows, fearing that she won't survive the journey, and she is raised there as an orphan while he returns to Tyre. And via a series of devices typical of Shakespeare, identities are mistaken, loves are found, lost, and found again, and all is well in the end.

But Wing-Davey uses the text merely as a jumping off point. His vision for the piece is like a set of nesting jewel boxes, each vignette and change of scene a fresh excuse for ingenuities of staging, design, comedy, and choreography. A moment in which Pericles gives a cache of grain to a city beset by famine is illustrated with an elaborate, Exploratorium-like machine in which rice quickly fills up three backlit, windowed boxes. A scene of a duel is done, in part, with puppets. And the scene of a violent storm at sea is done with a shocking amount of actual water, but we won't ruin the surprise of how Wing-Davey and set designer Douglas Stein create the effect. Suffice it to say, it made us laugh out loud and smile ear to ear, as much of the production did from beginning to end.

Also, there's great music and clever sound affects from start to finish, composed by Marc Gwinn and performed by him, Jeff Holland, and Jessica Ivry on a platform just above the action.

The ensemble comprises eight talented performers, including local every-king James Carpenter, ACT MFA graduate Jessica Kitchens (who does great work as the evil Dionyza and as Thaisa), the hilarious and versatile Rami Margron and James Patrick Nelson, Annapurna Sriram (who does a terrific job holding up the last segment of the play as Marina), and Wing-Davey's life-partner Anita Carey as the narrator/chorus. And we should give special shout-out for comic timing and chameleon-like versatility to Evan Zes.

Stein and Wing-Davey make admirable use of the smaller Thrust Stage, the intimacy of which only adds to the dynamism of the piece. And throughout we were reminded how joyful theater can be, for performer and audience member, when it's done with this much imagination. You should see this show regardless of how you feel about Shakespeare, or contemporary interpretations of his work, just to see some master stagecrafters at work.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre plays through May 26. Get tickets here, and be sure to select the "Under 30" option if you're under 30, to get half price.