Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival presents 'Twelfth Night'

His casting input — including Philadelphia stalwarts Alex Bechtel, Akeem Davis, Scott Greer, and Greg Wood in major roles — is matched by his keen insight into the play's complex characters and his deft staging in the Schubert Theater's three-sided configuration.

Not ready for my close-up

Steve TenEyck's simple set, which doubles as the stage for PSF's Alice in Wonderland, hearkens back to Shakespeare's Globe Theater with its hardwood floor and handsome upstage doors and levels. Its clean austerity fits the play's serious themes. TenEyck also lights the action with theatrical flair, using tight spots and moody cabaret lighting in the full-company songs that frame the evening.

The space keeps us close to the action — and sometimes sweeps us into it when actors roam the audience, as this critic learned the hard way — for the central characters' frequent soul-baring asides as well as wry observations from Feste the Fool, played with world-weary wisdom by Eric Hissom.

Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare's most musical plays; "If music be the food of love, play on," lovesick Orsino (Davis) commands. Bechtel composed tunes for Shakespeare's songs and the production's nuanced musical undercurrent, employing actors to play piano, cello, accordion, drum box, tambourine, xylophone, guitar, mandolin, and ukulele. These songs aren’t used as background, but rather as a driving force amplifying the characters' roiling emotions and the play's many moods.

Heart of the matter

Matters of the heart matter most in Twelfth Night. Everyone's unhappy in love, yet also hopeful. Victoria Janicki's youthful energy makes her an ideal Viola, shipwrecked alone in Illyria. She disguises herself as the boy Cesario to work for Orsino, becoming his confidante while also falling in love with him.

Janicki, aided by Olivera Gajic's simple and effective costume design, becomes a plausible imposter. The moment her Viola realizes everyone treats her as a man is not only comical but incisive and timely, as she embraces her assumed gender's powers.

Orsino pines for Olivia (Eleanor Handley), whose mourning heart is awakened by Cesario. Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Bechtel, in exquisitely comical suits with short pants that Gajic must have crafted from her grandma's floral curtains) pursues Olivia, as does her dour servant Malvolio (Greg Wood, ever masterful).

Drunken Sir Toby Belch (Greer), resplendent in a long leopard-print robe and red-lensed round glasses, seeks Olivia's commanding servant Maria (Suzanne O'Donnell). Viola's lost brother Sebastian complicates matters, their credulity-straining twinness balanced by Jahzeer Terrell's charms.

This Twelfth Night doesn't shy away from Shakespeare's other serious themes, even while the character-driven humor alone — especially from Greer and Bechtel — makes this a very special production.

Many stagings avoid desperation's darker tones by making Malvolio a shallow clown and the play's romances a frivolous device, but Pfeiffer and company bravely coax the play's seemingly contradictory shadings to coalesce into an experience greater than its disparate parts.

Highlighting the play's slapstick mistaken-identity plot results in many an enjoyable Twelfth Night, as I've seen by the dozen. Pfeiffer and PSF’s approach probes its melancholy characters' specific, sincere predicaments for their humanity. But it also highlights their humor and appreciates "the wind and the rain" in the play's beautifully rendered song. This combination is rare and wonderful.