‘Cymbeline’ and F. Murray Abraham in ‘Beckett Briefs’ Delight Off Broadway

“Cymbeline,” really? But why?

That tends to be my reaction whenever I hear that the overstuffed late Shakespeare play is getting a revival. Surely there must be something to stage that’s less of a slog?

Now along comes a “Cymbeline” to prove me wrong. The National Asian American Theater Company’s production, using a lucid modern verse translation by Andrea Thome, is frankly a delight: funny, absorbing, even affecting. And with not a single man among its wonderfully strong cast, it has both a sense of frolic in satirizing macho pride and an in-the-bones understanding of male menace.

Directed by Stephen Brown-Fried at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater in Greenwich Village, with dramaturgy by John Dias, this “Cymbeline” is presented with Play on Shakespeare, a project dedicated to creating versions of Shakespeare’s plays in modern English. The freedom of that approach makes it a striking contrast to “Beckett Briefs,” slightly uptown at Irish Repertory Theater, where another dead canonical playwright, Samuel Beckett, retains his customary tight control to fine effect. More on that below.

Thome imbues her translation with a light, graceful touch; her “Cymbeline” feels like Shakespeare, but our 21st-century ears acclimate to it faster. The plot is still, of course, ridiculous, and less about the title character, a British king (Amy Hill), than about his daughter, Imogen (Jennifer Lim), who has secretly wed her beloved Posthumus (KK Moggie). Cymbeline wanted Imogen to marry the son of his dreadful new queen (Maria-Christina Oliveras), the doltish Cloten (Jeena Yi), whose one selling point is the amusingly puckish lord (Purva Bedi) who makes up his retinue.

The exiled Posthumus, tricked into believing Imogen has been unfaithful, commands his servant, Pisanio (Julyana Soelistyo), to murder her. The honorable Pisanio secretly defies him. Adventure ensues, involving Imogen’s brothers, Arviragus (Annie Fang) and the heroic Guiderius (Sarah Suzuki), who were kidnapped as tiny children 20 years earlier and raised as rustics by Belarius (again the excellent Oliveras).

There is also a war with the Romans. I defy you to care about that, even here.

The rest of the performance is awfully entertaining, though, despite the fact that Imogen doesn’t deem Posthumus’s attempt to have her killed a marital deal breaker. She still considers him a prize.