Women’s Company Takes Leisurely Stroll Through ‘Twelfth Night’

Lisa Wolpe, founder and artistic head of the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company, ushers the group into a challenging new arena with “Twelfth Night,” the group’s first Equity production at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre.

The company’s previous outings have been confined to the small venues dictated by the Equity 99-seat plan agreement. The John Anson Ford seats more than 1,200, and although all those seats were certainly not filled on this particular night, there was a fair-to-middling crowd of enthusiastic patrons, with blankets and pillows in tow, set for an evening of Shakespeare under the stars.

In contrast to its former, forbiddingly raked steps, the recently refurbished front of the amphitheater now flows gently upward in a series of ramps and terraced seating areas, where the audience can enjoy a moment of repose or a glass of wine before curtain.

It’s a mellow atmosphere conducive to the pursuit of high art. Or pure entertainment, if that’s your bent--as it is Wolpe’s, in this most lofty of Shakespeare’s high comedies.

Wolpe, who also directs, boldly opens the proceedings with a sweeping panoply of Balinese dancers, masked prancers, even a towering puppet that shimmies and shakes with the promise of fun to come. Elina Katsioula’s set is an effusion of color and form, from the bamboo shanties of the Illyrian waterfront to the bright columns of Olivia’s outer courtyard, more suitable to a seraglio than a noblewoman’s residence. Nadine D. Parkos’ anachronistically opulent costumes, which combine Far Eastern glitter with an amusing touch of the West, scale the heights of pure whimsy.

Handsome trappings aside, the production’s too leisurely pace proves an occasional drag on the festivities. Peopled with madcap and deluded characters, most of them in a lather of unrequited lust or mistaken identity, “Twelfth Night” requires a pell-mell urgency for best comic effect. Wolpe’s actors are more inclined to stroll than to dash--perhaps partly because of the set’s precipitous stairway entrances.

However, by and large, the performers respond well to Wolpe’s slow hand. As is typical with the company’s productions, all roles are played by women--a tricky situation rife with potential disaster. If the performers aren’t up to snuff--if we become aware of them as women, parodying their male characters--then the enterprise can degenerate to the level of a mere drag show. Remarkably, that is never the case here. The actors, from Mary Eileen O’Donnell’s magnificently boozy Sir Toby Belch, to Veralyn Jones’ perfectly priggish Malvolio, transcend gender and bring their characters to full and vivid life--roaring crowd and fireworks noises from the nearby Hollywood Bowl notwithstanding.

Wolpe plays Viola, the shipwrecked damsel who falls in love with Orsino (Cynthia Ruffin), Illyria’s lovelorn Duke. Viola, in male attire, becomes Orsino’s trusted courtier and romantic go-between, carrying messages of love to Olivia (Lana Buss), the indifferent object of Orsino’s adoration.

From Hamlet to Romeo, Wolpe has played many leading Shakespearean roles for the company since its inception. Here, in a neat “Victor/Victoria” twist, Wolpe essays her first female character for the company--albeit one who spends most of the action in sailor drag. Wolpe is an ideal Viola, at times demurely feminine, at times convincingly boyish. As Shakespeare must have intended, her portrayal expands into a larger social commentary on the expectations of gender, the vagaries of personal identity--and the thin line that separates the two.

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* “Twelfth Night,” John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Los Angeles. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends June 25. Admission free. (323) 461-3673. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.