‘TWELFTH Night” again? We see it so often that this Shakespeare in the Park production could be retitled “112th Night.”
Of course, the play is a director and audience’s dream, packed to the gills with cross-dressing, swashbuckling, mistaken identities, romance, screwball high jinks and a happy (sort of) ending. Oh, and a large ensemble with plum parts for very diverse types of actors. Yep, they love this stuff, too.
No wonder that over the years, screen stars Michelle Pfeiffer, Helen Hunt and Julia Stiles have been drawn to the role of Viola, a lead who doesn’t actually have to carry the entire show on her shoulders.
And now it’s Anne Hathaway’s turn to try.
Make no mistake: As fun as the play is, we’re all here not to see it for the umpteenth time — especially since there’s no reason to expect anything challenging from director Daniel Sullivan — but to check how this particularly winning Hollywood actress fares at the original triple threat of live, outdoor Shakespeare.
As the sexy, witty, modernly ambiguous Viola, laying waste to men and women’s hearts, Hathaway gives a solid, committed performance. To paraphrase the immortal words of the Bard of Atlanta, T.I., all you haters can get at her, but she’s serious.
Of course, hard-core local theatergoers already knew that: Hathaway, now only 26, was rather good in the Encores! production of “Carnival” seven long years ago. And there, as in this show, she had to sing.
Despite occasional mumbling, her Viola is delightful and endearing in a puppyish way. Like the colorful, fast-paced production itself — the three hours positively fly by — Hathaway is light on her feet. She may not unearth any new nuances in the part, but it’s also difficult not to bask in her contagious enthusiasm.
The actress’ anime features (huge dark eyes, impossibly wide mouth) also work to her advantage when Viola dons male clothing and becomes Cesario, since so many Japanese cartoon characters are both sexually indeterminate and oddly neutered.
This may be one of the reasons sparks never really fly between Cesario and Audra McDonald’s Olivia. The latter bizarrely goes overboard as soon as her character gets crushed out on her handsome “gentleman” caller.
McDonald, perhaps trying to counter her reputation as a cerebral actress, dials up the eye rolls and girlish giddiness, as if playing to the peanut gallery all the way in Weehawken.
When she launches a surprise attack on Hathaway and kisses her on the lips, the result is comical rather than troubling — clearly gay panic is an evergreen when it comes to getting laughs. To her credit, Hathaway is so good as playing a witty but sexually bumbling young woman that Viola looks as if she’d be embarrassed by being kissed by anybody, man or woman.
The parallel amorous tension between Hathaway and Raúl Esparza, who plays Orsino, never heats up either. One of the great things about “Twelfth Night” is the way caddish Orsino starts in love with Olivia then finds himself confused by his attraction to Cesario.
Here you never feel anything of the sort. Orsino even looks kind of bummed out at the end, as if he had to content himself with second best when marrying Viola.
At least that’s a possible reading of what’s going on, which is almost refreshing considering that Sullivan was happy just smoothing out all the kinks (pun intended) and adding broooooaaaaad crowd-pleasing sight gags whenever possible. At times it seems as if his directions to the actors consisted mainly of “Why don’t you just do that voodoo that you do so well?”
This hands-off approach plays to the advantage of the comic leads, who fare better than the romantic ones. It says something about the tone of a production of “Twelfth Night” when you can’t wait for Orsino, Olivia and Viola to make room for Olivia’s doofus suitor, Andrew Aguecheek.
Lanky, droll Hamish Linklater is perfect as that hapless buffoon. Bouncing about John Lee Beatty’s AstroTurf knolls (I kept expecting Teletubbies to appear), he provides the night’s most uproarious moments. And while Jay O. Sanders (Sir Toby Belch), Michael Cumpsty (Malvolio) and Julie White (Maria) are fine, David Pittu eclipses them all as a relatively subtle Feste, particularly when he sings the lovely original songs by local indie band Hem.
So yes, it’s a fine and jolly evening. But there’s also a little something missing — an undercurrent of wistfulness, perhaps, a certain melancholia to balance out the laughs. As a result, the show is hard to dislike — but it’s also hard to love.
TWELFTH NIGHT
Delacorte Theater, Central Park (enter midpark at West 81st Street or East 79th Street); publictheater.org. Through July 12.
elisabeth.vincentelli@ny post.com