Shakespeare in Love, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Wimberly Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, through February 16.

Did Shakespeare ever experience writer's block? Did Christopher Marlowe prove a secret occasional influence? Did Shakespeare have an actress muse ready to crossdress to play men?

Fans of the enjoyable 1998 film ''Shakespeare in Love"(1999 best picture Oscar) will recall these and other intriguing speculations of that light-hearted film. In 2014 Lee Hall ("Billy Elliot" the musical) adapted the witty Tom Stoppard-Marc Norman screenplay for the stage. While faithful to the script, Hall's play focuses more on the challenges of playwriting and the world of the theater than on the movie's fired up romance between Shakespeare and merchant's daughter turned talented thespian Viola de Lesseps.

Pure romantics may prefer the emotionally stronger and more tautly focused film to the theater conflict-centered adaptation. Even so, SpeakEasy Stage Company, under the remarkable direction of Scott Edmiston, has made the Calderwood Pavilion premiere theater to embrace.

A kind of love at first sight for the production's winning design ensues as audience members enter the Wimberly Theatre to behold Jenna McFarland Lord's wooden stage set that harks back to its Elizabethan Age predecessors. Her design is flexible enough to handle the demands of the play's 1593 rival venues-Henslowe's Rose Theatre and Richard Burbage's Curtain Theatre. At various times- with the assistance of Judith Chaffee's expressive choreography and period movement and Ted Hewlett's sharp fight direction- ball merrymaking and pub revelry and face-offs come to vivid life.

Rachel Padula-Shufelt establishes a kind of design bridge between the Renaissance and modern times with a repertoire bringing together courtier and casual couture on the one hand and stylish leather attire on the other-a combination that is striking if not exactly enlightening. Karen Perlow's rich lighting possesses the nuance of a master painter's careful brushstrokes.

Visual enhancements notwithstanding, "Shakespeare in Love" heart ultimate resides in its story and the way in which cast members deliver its courting of the audience. Shakespeare buffs will know that the great playwright wrote with striking facility, but Edmiston's ensemble make the play's early examination of a supposed writer's block-as in the film-a satisfying scenario. Newton native George Olesky-in a generally auspicious SpeakEasy and Boston debut-does catch the early frustration and diffidence that both film and play ascribe to Shakespeare as he writes a sonnet or works on a play initially entitled "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter."
At the same time, he needs to be more dynamic as Shakespeare comes into his own as a theater force. Where contemporary dramatist Christopher 'Kit' Marlowe plays a fairly minor role in the film, here he does take on a pivotal position from time to time-especially as a kind of Cyrano de Bergerac prompting Shakespeare with poetry that touches the heart of Roxane-like Viola de Lesseps.

Eddie Shields, a gifted actor who has been demonstrating impressive range in the likes of SpeakEasy's area premiere of "Casa Valentina" and Actors' Shakespeare Project's revival of "Edward II," consistently dazzles as Marlowe- both as the flamboyant quipster advising Shakespeare and the accomplished though vulnerable author of ''Dr. Faustus."

Jennifer Ellis is equally arresting as Viola-whether disguised and calling herself Thomas Kent in order to act in a Shakespeare play, sharing a passionate romance with Romeo or resigning herself to a match made with relatively poor Lord Wessex, played with wise understatement by Louis Wheeler. She naturally moves between the boyishness called for from acting find Kent and the captivatingly charming Viola (think of the heroine of alluded to "Twelfth Night") that is meant to be seen as Shakespeare's inspiration. Ellis proves as much of a standout here as Gwyneth Paltrow is in the film.

There are several strong performances in support as well. Jesse Hinson takes off as premier actor Ned Alleyn from his first entrance and brings matching panache to the role of Mercutio. Omar Robinson has the right pretentiousness as Burbage, while Ken Baltin makes the most of his considerable comic talents capturing rival Henslowe's ongoing struggles to keep Rose Theatre viable. Nancy E. Carroll catches Queen Elizabeth I's majesty, and Carolyn Saxon proves a properly vital Nurse. Underrated and versatile actor Steve Auger (Praxis Stage's "Incident at Vichy," for one) delights in three roles.

Near the end of the play, the point is made that "something is out of joint." Shakespeare buffs-this critic included-may feel that observation applies to Hall's sometimes overly busy adaptation. Still, Edmiston and company make SpeakEasy Stage's rousing "Shakespeare in Love" premiere ''a palpable hit."