Director Jared Reed uses Gozzi's script and principles of classic Italian Commedia dell'Arte to create a semi-improvised performance, an intriguing concept that stumbles in practice. Much dialogue seems set in loose, contemporary language, while apparently off-the-cuff punch lines fall flat: Is The King Stag (or the audience) really enlivened by a Tom-Cruise-on-the-couch joke? Perhaps improv veterans like ComedySportz could infuse this situation with impromptu laughs; here, the attempts just slow it down.

The performances are strongest when true to the characters and story: Petersen's Truffaldino, the traditional clownish servant, could quip drolly with scripted punch lines. Gallagher's Smeraldina, the coarse maid betrothed to Truffaldino who wants her shot at King Deramo (Ken Opdenaker), is the cast's most outrageous slapstick buffoon. Keren White plays sweet Angela, the king's true love and the object of menacing Tartaglia's (Paul Kuhn) desires. He wants vacuous daughter Clarissa (Susan Jude) to marry the king, but she prefers Angela's serenely dim-witted brother Leander (Jerry Rudasill). Though none are strong singers, Petersen's songs emerge sincerely from this strong cast.

Reed's production infuses this comedy of errors, which leads to conjured identity-shifting, both hectic (in Act 1's palace machinations) and poetic (in the primitively lovely transformations in Act 2's magical forest), but its verbal inconsistencies and modern references water down the romance. References to The Beatles, Michael Jackson and Dr. Seuss seem general and stale, and only one in-joke—Smeraldina's puzzled tongue-waggling evolving into "The Girl From Ipanema"—seems truly inspired and organic, albeit dated.

With an audience—they didn't have much of a crowd last Saturday, unfortunately—Curio's slapstick zaniness should succeed grandly, making this a delightfully inventive production. But, please, leave TomKat out of it and trust the story.

THE KING STAG

Through May 27, Curio Theatre Company, 48th St. and Baltimore Ave., 215-525-1350 or www.curiotheatre.org