In the adventures of Robin Hood, it is the capricious archer who is the center of all legends, and around him swirl the Merry Men (Little John and Will Scarlett) and the evil of Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham and Maid Marian, whom Robin loves.

There is a way to look at this legendary story, however, through the eyes of a woman, and you can find a story with enough twists and turns to capture and hold your imagination.

That’s the case with "A Lady in Waiting," the production being staged by Theatre RED which opened Thursday night at the Soulstice Theatre and runs through Aug. 23. The play is an adaptation of the traditional story by local playwright Liz Shipe.

The story opens with Robin Hood (Zach Thomas Woods) at the edge of his beheading for crimes of murder and thievery. But before the axe can fall, we are moved in flashback to the time when this story began.

It is told by Aria, the handmaiden to Maid Marian (played by Shipe), and it is a bravura performance by Kelly Doherty, who with great good humor and grace takes us from the combativeness of her Scottish lady to the gathering of the Merry Men to the first tentative steps toward love between Robin and Marian in Sherwood Forest.

Doherty has a special ability to be funny, with a comedic timing that is enviable, and then to become stern in moments of high drama. She is a joy to behold on stage and stands out in a staging that features a number of good performances.

Jake Lesh plays the callow and treacherous Prince John with a precious air capturing all that is trouble in Nottingham. Meanwhile, Woods gives us a Robin Hood who is less crusading philanthropist and more cherubic and troubled warrior, conflicted about his place in the world.

Robin and his men, however, all take a back seat to the trials and travails of the two women, who are determined to flee to the Holy Land to rescue King Richard from prison. Their quest is the heart and soul of this story.

Shipe’s play is a wonderful nifty idea and sparkles early on with an earnest telling of a familiar story that provides a glimpse into the lives of characters we have heard of but don’t know much about.

She has a lovely way with the language, mixing the stilted phrasing of medieval English with a more informal style best used to provide some of the abundant humor in the first act. The smiles from the audience at the intermission were eloquent testimony to the joyful bounce of what they had seen so far.

But the second act became a tortuous journey through what were surprising developments, along with the long-winded speeches needed to explain what was happening. We had mistaken identities, mistaken motives, mistaken couplings, mistaken swordplay and mistaken deaths.

It all became a little too much.

What happened, I think, was that a play, telling an interesting and fun tale, suddenly began to take itself too seriously. As character after character died, they all had long and maudlin speeches about how sorry they were or how much they loved Robin or how anxious they were to join dead relatives.

Here we were jaunting along, enjoying the repartee, and suddenly we were asked to almost weep over the Hallmark Hall of Fame moments that landed like a giant anchor on the pace of the play.

Director Christopher Elst is an experienced hand, and he might well have taken Shipe aside and suggested that some judicious cutting of the script might be appropriate. With a 15-minute intermission, the play came in at two and a half hours. With songs that did nothing to move the story and the never-ending throes of lingering death, I kept waiting for the signal to bring the lights up and send us home.

This play has a future life, I’m sure, but Shipe needs to find a good dramaturg who can help keep the pedal to the floor and take her foot off the brake.