“Richard the Third” is one of the most complex and confusing of Shakespeare’s history plays – a subset of the Bard’s work that is in general more dauntingly obscure than the popular comedies like “ Twelfth Night” and “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” So it is a delight to come across the Judith Shakespeare Company’s smart, thoughtful and wonderfully accessible production of “Richard the Third.” This would be a great production for students to see, an ideal illustration of how much fun Shakespeare can be even when he’s not engaged in light, romantic Beatrice-and-Benedict style banter.

Director, dramaturge and company founder Joanne Zipay has dreamed up a wonderful metaphor for the fractious factions of the War of the Roses, during which the play is set. Instead of War of the Roses, she proposes, think “battle of the bands.”

On a dark, graffiti-scribbled stage set only with metal pipes and one regal red lounge chair (courtesy set designer Jason Ardizzone-West), jolly olde Englande becomes a rock and roll club. The ousted old Lancastrians are hippies; their remaining leader, old Queen Margaret (Jane Titus) is brilliantly costumed by Lea Umberger as a dead ringer for Janis Joplin. The triumphant York party are 80s club kids, leather-clad punks and sexually ambiguous glam rockers. And Richmond’s party, the rebellious younger generation? Hip-hop rappers, natch.

Although Zipay provides copious notes in the program to outline the factions vying for power near the end of the War, all you need to grasp the essentials for this production is a familiarity with Top 40 radio.

In addition to the clever conceit, the production boasts a wealth of superlative supporting players, all of whom demonstrate an easy grasp of Shakespeare’s language and a nice talent for making it’s humor and pathos ring out for a modern audience. The company, devoted to finding more and larger roles for women in the classics, offers a gender-blind casting of the play – which should make the play even harder to follow, but in Zipay’s expert hands, does not. (The group has had practice with this sort of thing, after all; this production is the final segment in the company’s presentation of all eight Shakespearian history plays.)

Jan-Peter Pedross expertly plays Hastings as a flamboyant pretty-boy heavily involved with a glamorous transvestite Jane Shore (Eric Emmanuel Wilson, in only one of his several scene-stealing small roles). Lindsey Harrison’s arch portrayal of Catesby is a treat; you only wish her part was larger, so you could hear more of the Bard’s words read in her gorgeous alto voice. Even the relatively thankless roles of Murderer 1 and Murderer 2 – characters who appear just long enough to contemplate their villainous orders and carry them out – are made into tiny comic gems by Vanessa Shealy and Laurie Bannister-Colon. (Part of the humor, of course, is that in this context the murderers are also finger-waving skateboard punks.)

But the show’s star turn, by far, is that of Alison White as Buckingham, evil Richard’s right-hand man. Charismatic and commanding, White’s smart, funny performance makes Buckingham’s continual manipulation of the political scene plausible. Particularly in the show-stopping final scene of Act 3, in which Buckingham stage-manages Richard’s hostile take-over of the throne, White is marvelous. Equal parts P.T. Barnum and Bill Clinton, she almost gets the audience to believe that the faithless Richard is worth crowning, until her final, triumphant grin at the end of the scene.

Not all the cross-casting is so successful. Zack Calhoun, playing a coke-addled Lady Anne in studded leather and “Blade Runner” makeup, shrieks his way through the well-known seduction scene. On the other hand, all three queens in the famous “three queens lament” are indeed played by women – ; but without great success. Crouched on steps and handing a bottle of Jack Daniels from hand to hand, Titus, Ivanna Cullinan and Marcia Montane seem more like factory workers griping about their foreman than mothers mourning the loss of their children. This is a rare instance in which Zipay’s modern staging doesn’t suit the text.)

Of course, any production of this play depends heavily on the actor – or actress – playing Richard. Gail Cronauer, a successful film performer, struggles in this role. Swathed in leather and flaunting enormous fake eyebrows, Cronauer brings a full measure of swagger to the stage. But she speeds through Richard’s speeches with desperate haste, as though she had to spit them out in time to catch the next bus. She gives the audience no chance to hear the words, let alone enjoy Richard’s jokes and sarcasm. As Richard fibs and cheats his way into power, Cronauer constantly telegraphs her character’s insincerity, draining scenes of their dramatic tension. A five-year-old wouldn’t fall for this Richard’s ploys.

Still, as a whole the cast is superb, and Zipay’s staging always inventive, right up to Richmond’s final speech, gleefully delivered by Mary Hodges as a rap song. That sounds like a joke -- but it works beautifully. As, indeed, does most of this unique production.