STAGE REVIEW : ‘Twelfth Night’ in La Jolla . . . as You Might Like It

No one will accuse Des McAnuff of wanting for imagination.

Following his witty staging of “A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum” this summer, he has now delivered a Shakespearean semi-equivalent to cap the season at the La Jolla Playhouse. It is “Twelfth Night,” that comedy of star-crossed twins and star-crossed lovers, that opened Sunday as an outrageous hodge-podge of periods, plunkings, pictures and pranks.

The jokes are on every level. The lyricism . . . that’s another matter. How well this “Twelfth Night” agrees with you will depend on the size of your appetite for the eclectic.

It is, however, impossible not to admire it--if not for the individual performances, which can be disappointing, then for the improbable coherence of its visual and aural incongruities: the massive Venetian Palazzo beauty of designer Neil Patel’s faux -marble walls, archways and floors, and the shimmering Adriatic projected beyond them; the ruthless scrambling of periods in Christina Haatainen’s costume design, ranging from Elizabethan to Victorian to modern, with Sir Toby Belch (Clarence Felder) looking like the March Hare and Sir Andrew Aguecheek (William Youmans) like a refugee from Le Cirque du Soleil.

Even wilder and more distinctive is the tangy electronic sound of the music for the Shakespearean songs that McAnuff co-composed with Michael Roth (who performs them with relish).

If this lunacy had to breakdown somewhere, it does so in the less persuasive cross-gendering of Curio (Tracey Leigh) and Valentine (Kari McGee), attendants to the lovesick Duke Orsino (James Morrison), who come off as wimpy henchmen. Casting women in those male roles fools no one, certainly, but it does support the plausibility of the acceptance of Viola as Cesario (played with inviting self-assurance by a gamin Molly Hagan).

Plausibility, however, is not what “Twelfth Night” is about, especially not this one.

What’s plausible in a story of twins separated by shipwreck, in which the girl for no terrific reason decides to dress up as a boy and seek employment with a Duke? What’s plausible about a Duke who sends him/her to press his suit with the woman he loves, the lady Olivia (Lisa Pelikan) instead of doing it himself? And what’s plausible about that woman promptly falling in love with the androgynous messenger?

As for subplot, it is the implausible buffoonery of the triumph of the servant Maria (Katherine Hiler), the rake Sir Toby and the wimp Sir Andrew over the puritanical Malvolio (Mark Bramhall).

Scratch plausible. If anything is supported in this production it is the totality of the director’s deconstructionist habits and his compleat creative control. Make that grip. The zaniness of that vision may not be for all markets, but a “Twelfth Night” set, at various times in a steam room, on a tennis court, in a Williams-Sonoma kitchen with suspended refrigerator, and where Sir Toby and his crew order pizza, can’t be all bad.

It’s not. Its weakest elements are the actors, particularly Morrison and Pelikan who look every inch their regal parts but speak the speech less than trippingly on the tongue. Excepted from this criticism are Hagan, Bramhall’s Malvolio (who can be colorless, but is always clear), Daniel Jenkins’ strumming troubadour of a Feste, Zaraawar Mistry’s Antonio and Evan MacKenzie’s Sebastian.

The triumvirate of real fools--Felder’s Toby, Youmans’ Aguecheek and Hiler’s lisping Maria--are lucidly vociferous and funny (though we could do without Aguecheek throwing up, thank you), but more as the instruments of McAnuff’s comedic imagination than on their own initiative.

The production is quintessentially a director’s confection--distinguished more for the way McAnuff has manipulated his strings than the individual contributions of his players. The advantage is a conceptual unity that would not have seemed possible given the disparate mix of ingredients.

Since there is no accounting for taste, it’s take it or leave it.

Personally, I’ll take it--including a final, sobering image that tacitly presages a changing of the guard and the discomforting arrival of more chilling and repressive times. One may, without any great leap of faith, draw the appropriate contemporary parallels.

At the Mandell Weiss Theatre, La Jolla Village Drive and Torrey Pines Road, Tuesdays through Sundays, 8 p.m., with matinees Saturdays and Sundays at 2. Ends Nov. 18. $20-$26; (619) 534-3960.

‘TWELFTH NIGHT’

Shakespeare’s play presented by the La Jolla Playhouse. Director Des McAnuff. Assistant directors Mary Coleman, James Peck. Scenic designer Neil Patel. Lighting designer Chris Parry. Costumes Christina Haatainen. Sound Stephen Erb. Music for scenes Michael Roth. Music for songs Michael Roth, Des McAnuff. Fight director Peter Moore. Dramaturgy Robert Blacker. Vocal coach Catherine Fitzmaurice. Stage manager C.A. Clark. Assistant stage manager Gordon McGregor. Cast Mark Bramhall, Clarence Felder, Orna Gil, Molly Hagan, Ben Halley Jr., Katherine Hiler, Daniel Jenkins, Tracey Leigh, Evan MacKenzie, Jefferson Mays, Kari McGee, Zaraawar Mistry, James Morrison, Shanga K. Parker, Lisa Pelikan, Dan Wingard, William Youmans and others.