Resident Ensemble Players present William Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night'

REP’s season-ending co-production with the Acting Company, which moves to Brooklyn’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center after its Newark, Delaware, run, has melancholy aplenty, though the play is still the comedy reflected by Shakespeare’s alternate title, What You Will. Lee Savage’s scenic design of flat white walls and steep steps, appropriately weathered, and lighting designer Philip S. Rosenberg’s stormy-sea skies — to which director Maria Aitken adds rolling fog — make a foreboding port city of Illyria.

Aitken also frames the play with wise fool Feste (Joshua David Robinson) and shipwreck survivor Viola (Susanna Stahlmann) alone, suggesting that the play’s action might be the bereft woman’s dream or the entertainer’s comforting fantasy. Either way, this Twelfth Night is a comedy that, though ending with two happy couples, leaves more complicated feelings.

Everybody loves somebody

Viola, comforted by Feste, decides to disguise herself as a eunuch and work for Duke Orsino (Matthew Greer). His love for Olivia (Elizabeth Heflin) goes unrequited because Olivia is mourning her brother’s death. Viola soon yearns secretly for Orsino, while Olivia falls for his messenger, the disguised Viola.

Meanwhile, Olivia’s drunk uncle Sir Toby (Lee E. Ernst) tutors dotty Sir Andrew (Michael Gotch) on winning Olivia’s affections, though all they accomplish is drinking Andrew’s money. They team with Maria (Kate Forbes) and Fabian (Mic Matarrese) for a cruel trick on Malvolio (Stephen Pelinski), Olivia’s servant — who, of course, also pines for her.

All these machinations are complicated further when Viola’s twin brother Sebastian (John Skelley) arrives and is mistaken for the apparently male Viola. That his friend Antonio (Hassan El-Amin) loves Sebastian, who does not return his affection, adds to the action, though Shakespeare doesn’t process that relationship as we might today.

A rare balance

Aitken’s production has a clean, clear, handsome quality. Compared to other Twelfth Nights, it doesn’t take chances or break new ground — except for that Feste-Viola framing device — but tells Shakespeare’s story with heart. It’s pleasing to see that Ernst’s Sir Toby, for all that he’s a raging alcoholic, is redeemed by his wit and affection.

Robinson’s Feste reveals a weary wisdom and sings the play’s songs with soulful insight. (Those tunes are delicately composed by sound designer John Gromada.) Viola and Sebastian, dressed alike with matching hats and hairstyles in Candace Donnelly’s playfully Edwardian costumes, make believable twins, which many productions bungle.

Most of all, all the characters come across as frail human seeking love in a chilly seaside town. It’s not the only way to interpret Twelfth Night, of course. Unlike the more sunshine and slapstick versions I’ve seen, though, it feels mature, sincere, and, yes, a bit melancholic too, in a way that just feels right.