Theater review
TWELFTH NIGHT
One hour and 45 minutes with no intermission. At the Delacorte Theater.
“Twelfth Night,” a comedy of disguises and mistaken identities, is a smart play to reopen Shakespeare in the Park with after a two-year renovation break.
Sitting in the 62-year-old open-air Delacorte Theater, you sure recognize the old girl. But something is a bit off. Or, in this instance, about $85 million off.
The venue is sleeker and cleaner, like a mid-century modern house.
And onstage, Viola, played by the incandescent Lupita Nyong’o, has changed too. After a shipwreck, Vi also gets a “wait a minute?” makeover when she’s stranded in faraway Illyria. She dons a suit, widens her stance and pretends to be a man, Cesario, to go work for the powerful Duke Orsino.
The crafty woman shakes things up to get by in an unfamiliar land, just like the Delacorte got some TLC to make it through another six decades of storms, dirt and raccoons.
Spiffed up though the environment is, the nutty “Twelfth Night” — bathed in seductive red and purple light — is a throwback to starry Park plays that used to be the norm off 81st Street. Back when thousands lined up to see Meryl or Pacino.
Oscar winner Nyong’o is joined by heavy-hitters Sandra Oh, Peter Dinklage and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. (Granted, the “Modern Family” actor has appeared in almost as many Delacorte shows as the moon.)
All of the bold-facers are impeccably cast and admirably ridiculous in director Saheem Ali’s production, which is always a good time, if somewhat disjointed.
Illyria, here, is repped by giant 3D signage in the back that reads “WHAT YOU WILL,” the second half of the play’s title that basically means “go crazy.” Everybody heeds its advice.
Oh, excellent, enters through the letter “O” as Olivia.
She radiates joy as the object of Malvolio and Orsino’s googly eyes; a regal woman in mourning who snaps out of it when she falls for Cesario and goes after him with gusto — not knowing he’s really Viola.
The former “Grey’s Anatomy” actress’ theater work has lately been somber and serious — “The Welkin” and “Death and the Maiden.” But it’s nice to revisit her smiling “Under the Tuscan Sun” and “Sideways” spirit. Oh’s irresistible.
She certainly is to Kris Davis’ smitten Orsino, who is envisioned as a fitness-obsessed mogul with a squad of “yes” men doing pushups and music-video aesthetic.
And to Dinklage’s officious Malvolio, who starts off as a rude, barking “Office Space” type whose arms don’t swing as he walks solely in straight lines. By the end, he’s a feral, love-sick clown.
The show is 99% comedy, but the purist form is drunkard Sir Toby Belch (John Ellison Conlee) stumbling around and doing lines of coke in a heart-shaped bathtub with Sir Andrew Aguecheek, played by Ferguson as practically a car dealership inflatable man.
While not all of these brands of humor or even acting cohere, they’re separately very entertaining.
Some bumps do come from Moses Sumney as Feste, the fool who, in typical Shakespearean fashion, is the wisest of them all.
Sumney wields an electric guitar and has a beautiful floating falsetto as he sings the fool’s songs. However, the music too freely gives into the poems’ darkness, and the numbers stop the show dead — pretty though they are.
His classical acting is not on the same level as the rest, either, which muddles his biggest, rather important scene with Malvolio.
A find here is Nyongo’s actual brother, James Nyong’o, as Viola’s lost sibling Sebastian. The words easily trip off his tongue and he clicks with his famous sister as well as you’d hope he would.
She, of course, is commanding and warm, fragile and formidable, and very funny in spots. And, like her brother, Lupita has that vital gift for Shakespeare.
I’m all for pyrotechnics, modern concepts, big names, spruced-up theaters and what you will.
But, as ever, the real star at the Delacorte, who reliably delivers the most memorable moments is Will, himself.
