Youth is served as Huntington takes on the Bard

Nicholas Martin loves working with young actors.

You can tell by the way the director leans back in his chair at a rehearsal and just beams at them. And by stories his actors tell of how he spotted them at college and followed their progress until they were ready to be in one of his shows.

''Love's Labour's Lost," which begins previews tonight at the Huntington Theatre Company, is a perfect choice for someone who enjoys young people: Shakespeare's comedy is positively swarming with them, all filled with impetuosity, flowery speech, and thwarted ardor.

When asked before a rehearsal what he gets out of mentoring, Martin says, ''Paternity."

Then he laughs, adding. ''And maternity. I never thought I could teach or wanted to teach. But when I did" -- at Bennington College in the '70s -- ''two things happened to me. One is I felt like a parent, but without the attendant college fees. And two was that I wanted to direct right away."

Martin, the Huntington's artistic director, still occasionally teaches in Boston University's theater department and is mentor for the graduate directing program. He also spent nine summers directing at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, a place that Noah Bean, an actor in ''Love's Labour's Lost," calls ''theater camp for semi-adults."

Mia Barron, who plays the Princess of France in the new production, attests to Martin's skill with young actors. ''Maybe because he fosters such deep relations, he knows people's work and what they have to bring," says Barron. ''He's serving the play, but he's also helping you make choices. This is highly unusual."

In the play, the King of Navarre and his three buddies all make a vow to forswear women, food, and sleep for three years while they concentrate on their studies. Berowne, the sharpest, thinks the others are mad, but goes along with it. The plan lasts for about five minutes until the Princess of France arrives on state business with her retinue of witty young women.

The men, of course, fall in love with them and try to secretly get around their vows, as do various other members of the court, also bound by the same edict.

Meanwhile the bemused women enjoy puncturing the men's bravado and hypocrisy.

''There's a lot of exuberance and relishing that battle with the men," says Barron. ''They use language to one-up each other, and yet there's also a lot of real love and curiosity and affection toward each other. It isn't dark and mean-spirited at all. It's a joyous event."

In rehearsal, Martin directs with a light, sure touch, tweaking movements and changing phrasing.

Bean, who plays Berowne, thinks Martin is so tuned in to young actors because he himself was one. ''He has that wonderful compassion and understanding of us and what we're going through," Bean says. ''And he knows when to stay out of the way and to get in the way at the right time."

''Love's Labour's Lost" starts off as a fast-moving comedy, but an unexpected death at the end sobers everyone. Martin says it's more like Chekhov than Shakespeare's other comedies.

''I'm attracted to plays that mirror life . . . that have laughter and tears coincidentally," he says. ''This play is very deep in that way. It goes from late summer right into autumn, emotionally and in the play."

It's also filled with archaic phrases and obscure references -- one reason it's rarely performed. Martin fixed that by freely slicing away the more impenetrable bits to make the play more accessible.

''Shakespeare knew what he was doing in terms of plot and character and poetry," he says. ''Those are the things that matter. It's easy to cut the topical references out of this play and still have a full and riveting evening."

He's also pulled the play out of its usual Elizabethan setting. He hates the era, particularly its restrictive clothing. That may explain why this is Martin's first Shakespeare production at the Huntington, and why he has directed only two other works by the Bard.

Martin says he and the designers considered setting the play in the 1930s or '40s but decided against it because he felt the world got too dark and ugly after World War I. So they settled on 1910, ''the last burst of anti-Victorian, carefree insouciance," he says.

Ragtime was the rage of the day, and Michael Friedman, musical director for the Huntington's ''Falsettos," has created a score with flavors of popular ragtime composer Scott Joplin.

''What people don't always know is just how free things became," Martin says. ''People weren't just sitting around a piano singing songs anymore, there were dance crazes."

Martin laughs easily and often, as he does when confessing to having played the part of the King (''horribly") in college, wearing lifts and ''way too much eye makeup."

Partly it's that infectious joy that draws actors to him. And it helps that he's something of a jokester, says Bean.

''He was walking by me one day, deep in thought, very serious," Bean says. ''He whispered, 'When I look like this, people think I'm thinking important thoughts.' "

Catherine Foster can be reached at foster@globe.com.