‘Night’ takes its clowning seriously

Kris Tabori’s breezy staging of “Twelfth Night” at A Noise Within may not have greatness thrust upon it. However, greatness gives an occasional sly nudge to this consistently excellent production.

Shakespeare’s frenetic scenario features a cross-dressing heroine, a lovesick duke, the usual mistaken identities and a plethora of clowns. Despite the broadness of the humor, Tabori infuses the proceedings with a Chekhovian reserve that is surprisingly apt. As drunken Sir Toby Belch, Robertson Dean is more suave than slobby, while Mark Bramhall plays the wise fool, Feste, as a pure rationalist of a near-Jesuitical stripe.

Although he doesn’t resort to outright pratfalls, Tabori does prime the production with a subtle undercoating of slapstick. Hamilton Camp, who plays the buffoonish courtier, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, is bar none the funniest character in the show. A master of the discreet double take, Camp is outrageously silly but never cheap, always keeping his wackiness well within the confines of Tabori’s realistic construct.

As Orsino, the lovelorn duke besotted by the beautiful countess, Olivia (Tessa Thompson), J. Todd Adams is impressively youthful and passionate in a role that is sometimes cast with far older actors. Julia Coffey is workmanlike but somewhat tame as Viola, the shipwrecked noblewoman who disguises herself as a man, joins Orsino’s court and reluctantly woos Olivia on her beloved master’s behalf. Kerby Joe Grubb, who gives a solid performance as Viola’s twin brother, Sebastian, is nevertheless miscast, towering over Coffey to an extent that makes it highly unlikely that anyone could mistake one for the other. Although a lovely young actress, Thompson brims with Method emotionalism when a splinter of ice in her performance would have better served the play’s comic mandate.

Alan Brooks is delightfully dour as the priggish steward Malvolio, whose agonized effort to smile almost causes a rupture. Cynthia Beckert, who has a swan’s neck and keen timing, burnishes the role of Olivia’s gentlewoman Maria to a high gloss.

A fitting framework for romance, Trefoni Michael Rizzi’s set contains an azure, flower-framed backdrop straight out of a Maxfield Parrish painting. Deeji and Boris Zelkin underscore the idyll with sprightly original music, while Alex Jaeger’s sumptuous costumes include a couple of ladies’ gowns that are genuinely drool-worthy.

*

‘Twelfth Night’

Where: A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale

When: Today, 8 p.m.; Saturday 2 and 8 p.m.; also April 15-16, 8 p.m.; April 17, 2 and 8 p.m.; April 25, 2 and 7 p.m.; April 28-29, 8 p.m.; May 7-8, 8 p.m.; May 16, 2 and 7 p.m.

Ends: May 16

Price: $20-$40

Contact: (818) 240-0910, Ext. 1

Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes