Twelfth Night

Most people who grew up in the country—or within walking distance of Central Park—have known the childhood pleasure of rolling down a hill, getting completely dizzy and grass-stained. The actors of the Public Theater’s blissful Twelfth Night are, accordingly, behaving like a bunch of kids. They sprawl, slide and plummet merrily over a series of hillocky greenswards designed by John Lee Beatty. The cast’s jollity is catching: We too feel young again—or, at least, that we’re reliving the early joys of Shakespeare.

There’s not a weak link in this buoyant, musical delight (with delicate tunes by the folk ensemble Hem), and Anne Hathaway’s outdoor-Bard debut is impressive. Not only does she toss off the poetry with breezy verve (slow down, Anne!), she displays solid physical-comedy chops—whether fending off the advances of Olivia (Audra McDonald), who falls in love with Hathaway in male drag, or reluctantly dueling with Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Hamish Linklater, drolly limp). David Pittu’s sad-clown Feste is perfect deadpan with a glitter dusting of camp, and Jay O. Sanders adds a bit of martial dash to the Falstaffian Sir Toby Belch. Michael Cumpsty is smugly starchy as Malvolio, and Julie White’s frisky lady-in-waiting Maria makes us forget that most of these puns and jokes are 400 years old and no longer all that funny.

Likewise, Sullivan’s approach is to go easy on the outdated wordplay and the slapstick zaniness, with the surprising result that this Twelfth Night (in 18th-century costumes) plays out with admirable clarity. Mainly, the cast and crew conjure a rich sense of wry wonder and romance. They roll giddily through this classic comedy, and we happily follow.—David Cote

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