Rebecca Hall

It WASN'T likely that Rebecca Hall was going to be able to sneak quietly into an acting career in England. Her father is one of the world's most renowned theater directors, Peter Hall. Of course, in the less-than-stage-crazed United States, that heritage is no bar to her anonymity. "It's quite refreshing, actually," she says happily. "In America, I think people are a bit more welcoming to the idea that your family might all do the same thing.

Rebecca Hall: A credit with a photograph that accompanied an article about actress Rebecca Hall in Thursday's Calendar section misspelled the first name of photographer Axel Koester as Alex.

In theater circles here, Sir Peter Hall is renowned for his tireless energy and punishing work ethic. But even by his standards, it's remarkable for a man of 74 to anticipate directing eight productions this year, culminating in his launch of an intriguing new playhouse. Hall brings to the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles next week his production of "As You Like It," with his 22-year-old daughter, Rebecca, playing Rosalind -- a performance that has elicited critical raves.

Perhaps because it's set in a world of hunger and homelessness, corruption and outright tyranny, all the comic love-play in "As You Like It" becomes deeply, unexpectedly touching: evidence of the rebirth -- against all odds -- of the best in human nature. Peter Hall's Theatre Royal Bath staging softens and stylizes the extremes in the play, giving us, for instance, a gauzy projected forest in which the blood-ritual of the deer hunt simply doesn't belong.