Even in life’s smallest encounters we are surrounded by good and bad: the woman who lets your kid go before her in line at King Kone; the guy who cuts you off at the tolls on the Tappan Zee Bridge.

There are Mother Teresas and there are Bernie Madoffs.

Shakespeare’s “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” — now in repertory at the excellent Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival — ratchets up these moments of good and bad.

Poor King Pericles is plotted against, shipwrecked, loved, widowed and bereft of family. He sees in those around him virtue and sin, charity and evil.

But he goes on.

“Pericles” is cinematic, a play with farflung locales: Antioch, Tyre, Tarsus, Pentapolis, Ephesus and Mytilene.

It’s Shakespeare’s Odyssey; Pericles is the bard’s action hero.

To mark the 30 years covered in the course of the play, director Terrence O’Brien employs three Pericleses: Ryan Quinn, Kurt Rhoads and Stephen Paul Johnson.

They switch simply: Quinn hands his armor to Rhoads, who repeats Quinn’s last line; later, Quinn and Rhoads help Johnson to don his robe.

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival is committed to the bard essential, to actors who fill the tent with Shakespeare’s words, using art without artifice.

Still, O’Brien likes to have fun as he and his players breathe life into 400-year-old plays.

When the knights joust, it is a choreographed affair, set to Rick Derringer’s “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo.” When they dance in the court of Simonides of Pentapolis, it is to Edgar Winter’s White Trash’s funky “Give it Everything You Got.”

Both numbers are playfully staged by Lisa Rinehart, a witty diversion from the heavier matter at hand.

Festival regulars will recognize many of the faces in O’Brien’s talented cast of 19.

Richard Ercole is the oily and evil King Antiochus, the playful King Simonides and the thoughtful governor Lysimachus.

Ercole’s skill is unassailable, as in the scene when Simonides toys with his daughter Thaisa and Pericles, pretending to be stern while tossing joyful asides to the crowd.

(When he ordered Thaisa and Pericles to “Unclasp! Unclasp!” at the end of the dance, I swore I heard Gladhand from “West Side Story.”)

Gabra Zackman is Thaisa, Simonides’ daughter who likewise mixes emotions, disguising her true feelings to all but the audience.

Stephen Paul Johnson plays the easygoing narrator Gower and the eldest Pericles, a man whose mood swings from paralyzing misery to overwhelming joy.

Rhoads, returning to the festival after a year’s absence, finds Pericles’ thoughtfulness and his wariness. The scene where he reminisces about his long-dead father is particulary affecting.

Nance Williamson, also returning to the festival, is solid as Pericles’ counsellor Helicanus.

Christopher V. Edwards plays the henchman Thaliard, sent to kill young Pericles. Later, he’s the brothel servant Bolt as a Cockney, a man who can get you what you want, for a price. The accent gives Bolt a Dickensian gloss that is entirely fitting.

Bolt is one of a trio.

Zackman plays his mistress, Bawd, as a fast-talking, no-nonsense dame, like Rosalind Russell in “His Girl Friday.”

Michael Borrelli plays Bawd’s husband, Pander with an outrageous accent and a wig that adds half a foot to his height. He is also Cerimon, the herbalist who revives Thaisa.

Another trio is worthy of mention.

Reappearing as fishermen, knights and pirates, Wesley Mann, Mike Roush and Zach Fineblum mine every moment for comedy — and find their share of gold. Their timing is spot-on, their chemistry undeniable, their effect comical.

Mann, a festival veteran, also brings depth to Cleon of Tarsus, particularly in a scene when he confronts his conniving wife, Dionyza, plaid in cold blood by Maia Guest.

Katie Hartke plays Pericles’ earnest and thoughful daughter, Marina, who was born at sea during a violent storm — “a more blusterous birth had never babe.”

Hartke’s Marina is clear-eyed and logical, never more so than in a funny scene when she convinces the confused Lysimachus that he’d much rather pray than sleep with her.

Quinn’s young Pericles is confident, a bit brash and fast-talking, so much so that some of his early lines were lost as the ear adjusted to the language.

Charlotte Palmer-Lane’s costumes mark the change in scene with a change in palette: the evil Antioch is dark grey, with a rust chain mail; Tyre is soft and golden; Tarsus a fiery red; Pentapolis in blues and greens; Ephesus is whites and tans and the seedier Mytilene is a colorful patchwork of bright colors.

In a nice touch, Marina’s clothes are an appropriate blend of her travels and travails: She wears a golden skirt to reflect her father’s home, a blue blouse for her mother’s and a plaid vest for where she ended up.

Dan Scully’s lights extend beyond the tent, as a tempest’s waves ripple onto the lawn beyond. Bo Bell’s sound effects add greatly to the action, from waves on the shore to a furious storm.

Mother Nature heightened the effect, as if on cue, at one recent performance. As the storm raged inside the tent, thick clouds rolled in from West Point across the Hudson and a cool breeze buffeted the audience. After intermission, the skies opened for 10 minutes.

“Pericles” is so rarely performed that even if it were bad, lovers of Shakespeare might want to check it out this summer at Boscobel.

But it is good.

Much better than good.

‘Pericles, Prince of Tyre’
Where: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Route 9D, Garrison.
When: Through Sept. 6, in repertory with “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Complet Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).”
Tickets: $29-$46.
Call: 845-265-9575.
Web: hvshakespeare.org