The subtitle of “Twelfth Night, or What You Will” has proved to be particularly appropriate. It’s not only one of William Shakespeare’s most popular comedies, but also one of the most adaptable. You can set it in the Old West, the swinging Sixties or on the Moon and it can still work pretty well.
For its second production of “Twelfth Night” in its 59-year history (10 years after the last one), Actors Ensemble of Berkeley has turned the comedy into an acoustic rock musical. There are a bunch of songs written into the play to begin with, but this version cleverly sets the verse of Shakespeare’s speeches to catchy, upbeat rock music by Jay Africa, starting at the very beginning with the “If music be the food of love, play on” speech.
In fact, the party atmosphere is in full swing before the play begins. As the audience enters for the free outdoor show, the performers are hanging out onstage in the John Hinkel Park Amphitheater merrily singing pop songs, like karaoke but with a live band.
It turns out to be a great hook for the production, because the musical numbers are far and away the best part of it. The energy of director Michael R. Cohen’s playful staging always goes up a few notches when somebody bursts into song.
Although some of the sense of her lines is occasionally compromised by oddly placed emphases, Crystal Brown is irresistibly animated and charismatic as Viola, the young woman who dresses up as a man to serve a duke who enlists her/him to woo a countess — leading, of course to an awkward romantic triangle in which Viola loves the duke, who loves the countess, who loves Viola in her male guise. Brandon Dellis is an amusingly laid-back hipster Duke Orsino, and Emily Stone is a voraciously amorous Countess Olivia. Lee-Ron is a low-key Sebastian, Viola’s long-lost twin brother, whose arrival sets off all kinds of mistaken-identity high jinks.
In the parallel plotline of a crew of drunken revelers’ plot to make a fool of Olivia’s puritanical steward Malvolio (a restrained Bruce Kaplan), Terry Haley makes a boisterous party animal as Sir Toby Belch, well matched with Julian Marenco (who doubles as one of the omnipresent onstage musicians) as his laughably dim drinking buddy, Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Virginia Corrigan is a lively Maria, the chambermaid who orchestrates the trap, and musical director and guitarist Linda Giron is a pleasingly cheeky Feste, the jester.
In many ways it’s a bare-bones production. There’s hardly any set, and with a few exceptions such as Olivia’s mourning clothes and the garish outfit Malvolio is tricked into wearing, many of Mercedes Cohen’s costumes are so casual and contemporary that they could be mistaken for the actors’ street clothes.
There are uneven patches in the production, and some odd cuts in the text here and there that include the buildup but not the payoff to a few of Shakespeare’s gags. But most of the time when the characters start rocking out, the songs are so exuberant, and so cleverly wrought from pre-existing monologues, that they can’t help but put a smile on your face.
Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.
‘TWELFTH NIGHT’
By William Shakespeare, presented by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley
Through: Sep. 5
Where: John Hinkel Park Amphitheater, 41 Somerset Place, Berkeley
Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes, one intermission
Tickets: Free; 510-649-5999, www.aeofberkeley.org