The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • G21

June 29, 2007 THE RECORD 21 In this 'Romeo two young-at-heart leads REVIEW ROMEO AND JULIET Play revival, presented by the Public Theater at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, Central Park West and 81 st Street, Manhattan; 212-539-8750. Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by Michael Greif. With Lauren Ambrose, Oscar Isaac, Christopher Evan Welch and Camryn Manheim. Schedule: Through July 8.

8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Tickets: Free. By ROBERT FELDBERG STAFF WRITER There are lots of things going on in the outdoor production of "Romeo and Juliet" in Central Park, but it isn't hard to know where to begin Lauren Ambrose. The actress, best-known for playing Claire Fisher in "Six Feet Under," is perhaps the most vibrant, persuasive, appealing Juliet I've ever seen.

Pale and slender, with long red hair, the 28-year-old Ambrose easily passes for a teenager. As important, she behaves like one. Her Juliet is a smart, open-hearted young woman experiencing the excitement of an intense first love. Ambrose's heart-touching performance is utterly natural. Unintimidated by the familiarity of Shakespeare's poetry, she speaks her lines with a freshness and spirit that suggests she's creating them on the spot.

Her Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" is not a forlorn wail, but an impatient teenager's expression of frustration. As Romeo, Oscar Isaac is a fitting partner for Ambrose. Slightly built, with long, dark hair, he also is persuasively young and inexperienced. And while not as charismatic as Ambrose, he speaks vibrantly and behaves with considerable passion. Director Michael Greif has also gotten passionate performances from much of the rest of the cast not always to the benefit of the play but attention is often distracted by the odd, intrusive scenery.

At the center of Mark Wendland's set MICHAL DANIEL The star-crossed under the stars: Lauren Ambrose as Juliet and Oscar Isaac as Romeo at Central Park's Delacorte Theater. also constantly grabbing, poking or squeezing her cast mates. Christopher Evan Welch, as Mercutio, also goes off the deep end occasionally -he spends more time than anyone else flailing around in the pool in the service of crafting an outsized comic figure. But he's lively and fun to watch and, when he snarls "a plague on both your houses" after being mortally wounded in defense of Romeo, surprisingly touching. Ultimately, though, the vigorous evening belongs, as it should, to the young lovers.

And several times, as in the giddily joyful balcony scene, played beneath the real moon, it rises to the magical. design is a large pool, a couple of inches deep, in which the characters splash, swoon and stumble. It's surrounded by a wide, revolving boardwalk. I kept trying to figure out the symbolic meaning of scenes played in the water as opposed to those on dry ground. I finally decided there wasn't any.

A metal bridge crosses over the pool. With actors frequently climbing up steps and clambering over it, the director manages to considerably extend the play's run ning time. The production, which dresses the cast in a broad range of 20th-century outfits but is otherwise traditional, begins with a free-for-all, with characters of all ages and both sexes duking it out. This creates a level of fervor from which some actors never descend. Principally, that means Camryn Man-heim Playing Juliet's cigarette-smoking nurse, she screams many of her lines at the top of her lungs, while E-mail: feldbergnorthjersey.com Managing anger, comically WHO: Tony Daro.

WHAT: Comedy. WHEN: 9:30 tonight. WHERE: Bananas, 283 Route 17 south (at the Holiday Inn), Has-brouck Heights; 201 -727-1090 or bananascomedyclub.com. HOW MUCH: $12. By ED CONDRAN SPECIAL TO THE RECORD Anger has its place in comedy.

Whenever Jackie Gleason lost control, hilarity often followed. Louis C.K.'s blood pressure rises, and so does his audience's laugh quotient when he talks about his sexless marriage and irritating children. And then there's Tony Daro, who channels fury into his act. The Rockland County-based comedy veteran is enraged about how he's treated by airport security. "I can't stand it," Daro said.

"I travel a lot, so there's the problem. A month ago I traveled back from Italy with some cheese and capicola. I carry it through customs and I find out that you can't bring pork products into the country. Now I'm on a list, so every time I go through an airport I'm going to be detained. It man.

"I loved writing for 'Saturday Night Live' and "Weekend Daro said. "The talent, Colin Quinn, Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon, was excellent. I wrote there during the end of the Clinton era, from 1997 through 2001, and there was always something happening." Daro, who will perform tonight at Bananas in Hasbrouck Heights, is also inspired by the world of entertainment. "Every day I pick up a paper I read about Paris Hilton," he said. "We're endlessly fascinated with her.

Everybody has an opinion about her going to prison. A couple of months ago there was a story about the troop deployment in Iraq being extended from 12 months to 15 months. Hardly anybody paid attention to that story, but if Paris Hilton was a part of it, we would all care about it." reminds me of that line from "The Sopranos' when Tony passed out and said, 'All of this over a piece of "How many man-hours are they wasting on me at the airport, how much are taxpayers throwing away because they're looking at me as if I'm a threat?" Daro, 48, has made much of his comedic living as a writer. The father of a 23-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter has written jokes for "Saturday Night Live," "The Tonight Show" and "Late Show With David Letter-.