Even without Christopher Plummer's extraordinary performance as Prospero in "The Tempest," the Stratford Festival's current production of William Shakespeare's final play is well worth seeing for its dazzling staging and for the childlike yet otherworldly performance of Julyana Soelistyo as the sprite Ariel. It is an almost impossible role to play believably, but watching Prospero's "chick" swim through the air to obey his master takes the breath away with the grace and lift of its audacity.

Shakespeare found his plot in the true story of a shipwreck off Bermuda soon after the island's discovery. The playwright's mythical island is an enchanted place, inhabited by witches, monsters, and sprites, but ruled by Prospero, the usurped Duke of Milan, who is also a great wizard. At last, Prospero will take vengeance against his brother, the usurper, but will also make a match between King Alonso's son Ferdinand and his own daughter, Miranda-if the young man proves worthy.

For a play rooted in the theater as a make-believe world that reveals truths, set designer Robert Brill and lighting designer Michael Walton use trapdoors and invisible wires, flashing lights sewn into a coat and a feather that flies - tricks of stagecraft to make an empty stage enchanted.

Director Des McAnuff has streamlined the play, sometimes well, sometimes not; it runs a brisk two and a half hours. In that time, Plummer defines a warmly human Prospero who dearly loves his daughter but still storms against his brother. He is less frightening than most Prosperos, though, largely because he retains his sense of humor. This is the funniest "Tempest" I have seen, and it works.

Even though Prospero is so moving that it feels churlish to complain, Plummer and McAnuff have conspired to soften his edges. He wants vengeance, but his rage lacks the sharpest possible bite. As a result, the necessary emotional balance between his freeing of Ariel and his ultimate choice of forgiveness over revenge is off. It should have been even more powerful than it was.

Trish Lindstrom plays Miranda with warmth and spirit, a modern take on a protected yet independent young woman. Gareth Potter is a charming juvenile as Ferdinand though, like too many young actors at Stratford these days, he struggles with Shakespeare's rhythms. Geraint Wyn Davies as a bumptious Stephano and Bruce Dow as a mincing Trinculo are funny but lack the spark of others in previous Stratford productions. As Caliban, Dion Johnstone, clad in Paul Tazewell's reptilian costume, brings muscular grace to the monster.

McAnuff also directed a very disappointing "As You Like It" at this year's festival. The production begins with a Nazi-like tyranny that banishes the legitimate Duke and, eventually, his daughter Rosalind. They flee to the forest of Arden, where Rosalind, disguised as a young man, will become an adult, find true love, and return to the real world as others also find their selves that they had lost - except for the melancholy Jacques.

Rule No. 1: beware of directors (and politicians) who use the Nazis as an image; it cheapens the horror of the Third Reich even though it turns almost immediately into banality.

Unfortunately, the director's vision (Rule No. 2: beware of directors with "vision") then settles more or less in the 1920's for no discernable reason; it is a tortured connection despite charming early jazz orchestrations of the show's songs. The play finally ends with the ultimate 1920's clich� - a Charleston number.

Rosalind is at the center of this play; she shapes the various plot strands, character relationships, and comic confusions until all is well. Andrea Runge is vivacious as Rosalind, but she lacks the authority to carry the play.

What could McAnuff have been thinking when he had the always-strong Ben Carlson begin his portrayal of the clown Touchstone as if he's a corporate executive? Carlson eventually becomes very funny in his romantic turn with the goatherd Audrey, played with great broad humor by Lucy Peacock.

Most convincingly, the brilliant Brent Carver invests Jacques with a saddened heart open to the vagaries of human experience. Dressed in black, carrying an umbrella and wearing a bowler hat, he stands aside from the revelry. His great speech, "All the world's a stage," feels improvised, as though it came to him as he spoke it, and is all the more convincing for being both thoughtful and deeply felt as he ponders what he knows.

Carver also appears with the attractive performers Jewelle Blackman and Nathalie Nadon and the gifted Mike Nadajewski in "Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living and Paris." Originally a 1968 revue, the show consists entirely of songs by the 1950's Flemish songwriter who spent most of his career in Paris. Although some call Brel and his songs bitter, I prefer to see him as a bruised romantic. His songs suffer in darkness but never lose the last trace of hope.

Director Stafford Arima transforms the not-especially-ambitious cabaret piece into a vivid work of theater. Avoiding the limits of number-blackout-number-blackout, he creates dramatic tension between songs, traces themes so they become clear but not blunt, and matches the performers' strengths to Brel's. That's especially true for the two men: Nadajewski, with his striking range as an actor and his gift for physical comedy, and Carver, whose confident but slightly wearied singing voice seems to embody all that Brel knows: the destructiveness of warfare, the fragility of love, and always the tentativeness of human contact. Of the show's two-dozen songs, none is more powerful than Carver's definitive rendering of the Flemish "Marieke," here sung partly in English.

"The Winter's Tale" is one of Shakespeare's most underrated plays. It is a strange combination of spare wintertime tragedy and blossoming springtime restoration, its two parts separated by 16 years and divided by the arrival of both a vicious bear and the figure of Time. It is filled with strange doings, but ultimately convincing and, more important, moving. Director Marti Maraden's production, led by Ben Carlson, Seana McKenna, and, in the supporting role of an old shepherd, the always wonderful Brian Tree, is richly satisfying.

The play's great struggle - between winter and spring and all they signify - exists in Leontes' heart and in his use of power. He is king of Sicilia, the winter realm where all is barren and everyone wears black. Ben Carlson's portrayal of the king is riveting. His larger-than-life emotions and rapid changes from love to hate and back are entirely believable. Fortunately, the acting in all but a few small parts sustains dramatic momentum despite some very talky scenes. It is very hard to disagree with a friend who called it the finest "Winter's Tale" he had ever seen.

On the other hand, it's easy to disagree with anyone who can stomach what director John Doyle has made of "Kiss Me Kate," a 1948 musical with Cole Porter's greatest score. But here it is, turned into nothing short of a mess. For starts, the leading lady and leading man - Monique Lund and Juan Chioran - lack star power.

"Kate" tells the story of a revival of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" by Fred Graham, an egotistical actor down on his luck and still in love with his tempestuous star (and former wife), Lili Vanessi. It gives us the chaotic but romantic life of the theater, both onstage and off, as Porter provides songs for the actors and the characters they play. Through some delightfully ridiculous plot twists, two gangsters end up holding Lili hostage until she finishes the show so Graham can pay off a gambling debt (it isn't his anyway; don't worry about it). The second love affair concerns two other cast members, Lois, who's been having an affair with Graham, and Bill, who loves Lois and who signed Graham's name to the IOU.

Everything is carried to appalling excess. Chilina Kennedy, a talented musical performer, does nothing but shriek in a bad New York accent. The costumes for "Shrew" are supposed to be crazy quilt for a harlequinade, but the colors are so ugly that they're hard to find any fun in. When Graham as Petruchio begins to tame Kate by wearing wild finery to their wedding, the joke flops because the costume is actually less wild than anything preceding it.

What's right about "Kate": the opening numbers for both acts, the busy, spirited "Another Opening, Another Show," and the overheated "Too Darn Hot," with the best dancing in the show. There's also one bit of brilliant comic business amidst ceaseless mugging: Lund as the flamboyant Vanessi tries to escape her captors by turning into liquid and oozing out of sight.

Perhaps best of all is the way the show connects onstage scenes with the frantic business of an opening night backstage. Everything is motion until a scene begins to take form. If only that shaping had held once the scene began. I continue to believe that the whirling sound I heard during the performance was Mr. Porter doing you-know-what you-know-where.

2010 Stratford Shakespeare Festival

Through October 31

Stratford, Ontario, Canada

800-567-1600, stratfordfestival.ca