LENOX, Mass., July 12 — So is he or isn’t he — mad, that is? In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” that’s what everybody asks everybody else about its title character, and scholars and theatergoers have continued to pose the question for more than 400 years. But for the folks at Shakespeare & Company, the invaluable and indefatigable 28-year-old troupe that prides itself on clarity in interpreting the canon, the answer is obvious: Of course, Hamlet is mad — but mad as a hornet, not as a hatter.

Really, wouldn’t you be seriously ticked off if you discovered, at a young and impressionable age, that the world you had grown up in so comfortably was riddled with the vilest corruption? That no one can be trusted, including your mom (that slut), your girlfriend (that traitor), your school chums (those bootlickers) and, most of all, your bossy stepfather (that corporate fascist pig murderer), who presumes to tell you how to live your life.

Why not get back at the whole rotten lot of them by pretending to be crazy? Then you can give your anger full, showy rein, and everyone will indulge you because you’re sick.

Such disgruntled thoughts — familiar to pretty much everyone who has ever been a teenager — would appear to be what motivates the Hamlet of a smoldering, charismatic and largely unknown actor named Jason Asprey (whose mother, Tina Packer, is the artistic director of Shakespeare & Company and — gulp! — this production’s Gertrude). His rancor propels Eleanor Holdridge’s enjoyably revved-up, pared-down version of the most famous of English tragedies, which runs at the Founders’ Theater through Aug. 27.

Don’t be put off by Ms. Holdridge’s explanation in the program notes that her production is centered “in the electrical synapse impulses of Hamlet’s dying brain.” Fortunately, this show is focused more on high dudgeon than on high concept. And those electrical zapping noises and flashes of light that are supposed to indicate neurons run amok can just as easily be interpreted as natural extensions of one young man’s extreme combustibility. Besides, such special effects help keep an audience alert.

Not that much spectacle is required (or used) to command the attention here. As is almost always the case with productions from Shakespeare & Company, the first priority is to tell a cracking good story and to “speak the speech” so clearly and comprehendingly that even theatergoers new to Shakespeare grasp the plot and characters (and forgive some less-than-subtle performances along the way). That style has been Ms. Packer’s hallmark since she established the company in 1977. And the approach shows no signs of losing its entertaining crackle.

It is surprising, perhaps, that Ms. Packer, the foremost implementer as well as principal teacher of this style, should have handed over the direction of her company’s first main-stage production of “Hamlet” to someone else. But the bonuses, at least in publicity value, of her switching to the role of actress have been great. For not only is Ms. Packer playing Hamlet’s mother to her son’s Hamlet, but her husband (and Mr. Asprey’s stepfather), Dennis Krausnick, also shows up as the pompous Polonius. How’s that for a family outing, Dr. Freud?

As it turns out, Oedipal undercurrents are, if anything, less fierce than usual in this “Hamlet.” Ms. Packer portrays Gertrude as a high-spirited, practical woman who would just as soon be pleasant as not but can push the power-queen buttons when crossed. She worries about her wayward son, of course, but her main focus is running the kingdom with her ill-gotten husband, Claudius, played compellingly by Nigel Gore as a sort of bureaucratic variation on one of the dapper gangsters the Kray Brothers.

The play’s dominant relationship shifts unconditionally to that of Hamlet and his dead father, whose image inspires more tender and guilty feelings in the prince than any skirt can, including the fair Ophelia (Elizabeth Raetz). The triple casting of the excellent John Windsor-Cuningham as Hamlet père’s ghost, the Player King and the Gravedigger works splendidly, underscoring Hamlet’s loving and fearful obsession with a father he worries he could never have satisfied.

This Hamlet is never more intriguingly thoughtful than when surprised by his father’s living memory. Otherwise, Mr. Asprey’s Hamlet is too impatient to convince as a vacillating philosopher prince, whose resolution is “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.” He does the famous soliloquies with a throwaway grace that makes them less than a main event. But in antic action, showing his exasperation with the world in genuinely madcap style, he is terrific fun to watch. And his disgust at the betrayals of his peers, including Ophelia and Rosencrantz (Tom Wells) and Guildenstern (Kenajuan Bentley), registers like a kick in the stomach.

Reducing “Hamlet’ to a cast of 11 (and a three-hour playing time) has required textual compression and rearrangement that may offend purists. The play now begins with a sort of montage of famous lines (presumably echoing in the dying Hamlet’s head), skips the first ghost scene and eliminates all but one of the traveling company of players. (This means that Hamlet recruits Gertrude and Claudius to play the roles of the treacherous wife and brother of Gonzago — a logic-defying device that almost works.)

More distracting are the hipster costumes (by Jessica Ford) , which suggest that the court of Elsinore routinely trawls the Top Shop stores for Gaultier and Galliano knockoffs. And while Kevin O’Donnell’s fired-up Laertes is a perfect dimmer mirror to Mr. Asprey’s Hamlet, Ms. Raetz’s Ophelia is too spunky and spiky to morph believably into a suicidal flower child.

The climactic catastrophic sword fight (Kevin G. Coleman did the choreography) is truly exciting, while further allowing Mr. Asprey to define his Hamlet through action. Never mind that the prince is best known as a man of inaction. Who wants a mopey, sniveling Hamlet on a close summer night? Mr. Asprey’s Dane, more choleric than melancholy, feels just right for the season of adventure movies and page-turners.

HAMLET

By William Shakespeare; directed by Eleanor Holdridge; sets by Edward Check; lighting by Les Dickert; costumes by Jessica Ford; production stage manager, Molly Elizabeth McCarter; music and sound by Scott Killian; fight choreographer, Kevin G. Coleman; assistant director and fight captain, Stephen James Anderson. Presented by Shakespeare & Company, Tina Packer, artistic director, and Mark W. Jones, executive director. At the Founders’ Theater, 70 Kemble Street, Lenox, Mass.; (413) 637-3353. Through Aug. 27. Running time: 3 hours.

WITH: Jason Asprey (Hamlet), Nigel Gore (Claudius), Tina Packer (Gertrude), Dennis Krausnick (Polonius/Priest), Kevin O’Donnell (Laertes), Howard W. Overshown (Horatio), Elizabeth Raetz (Ophelia), John Windsor-Cunningham (Ghost/Player King/Gravedigger), Tom Wells (Rosencrantz/Soldier), Kenajuan Bentley (Guildenstern/Osric) and Stephen James Anderson (Fortinbras).