Alfresco and free in the park

Come with a lawn chair and a cooler full of cakes and ale. (Pre-show picnicking is encouraged.) Come with a sweater. (The summer nights are chill.) But by all means do come to “Twelfth Night,” the opener for Independent Shakespeare Company’s repertory season of free Shakespeare in beautiful Barnsdall Park, high above Hollywood Boulevard.

Ignore the occasional droning helicopter overhead. The actors do. After all, they’ve been up on this hillside for five consecutive summers. It’s fitting that their makeshift amphitheater is adjacent to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House. Like that landmark, the Independent is establishing itself as one of the community’s treasures.

This ambitious season, which includes productions of “King Henry IV” and Christopher Marlowe’s “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus,” shows wide range. However, “Twelfth Night,” arguably Shakespeare’s most beloved and accessible comedy, seems particularly well-suited to the performers, the venue and the appreciative crowd. When the evening opens with a Beatles song, we suspect we are in for plenty of fun, and director Melissa Chalsma’s lighthearted staging does not disappoint.

A veritable tempest of cyclonic plot twists, the play chiefly concerns the fortunes of Viola (Aubrey Saverino), a young maiden of Messaline who has presumably lost her twin brother, Sebastian (Matthew Hurley) in a shipwreck. Come to safely harbor on the coast of Illyria, Viola dons boy’s attire, takes the name of Cesario and joins the court of the Count Orsino (Ahmad Enani), with whom she promptly falls in love.

Unaware of his boyish courtier’s true gender, Orsino enlists Cesario as the go-between in his hopeless suit for the hand of the Countess Olivia (Angel Parker). Of course, Olivia falls for Cesario in short order, and the stage is set for further unlikely happenings.

But the play’s true business is clowns, clowns and more clowns, which pour forth like circus performers from one of those tiny prop cars. Wise fool Feste (Bobby Plasencia) goes from standard stage diction to an exaggerated Spanish dialect at the drop of a tambourine. Full of “dormouse valor,” idiotic Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Thomas Ehas) is led on a merry path to ruin by his boozy compatriot, Sir Toby Belch (hilarious David Melville). Malvolio (solidly silly Joseph Culliton), their dour but no less clownish counterpart, is the self-righteous “puritan” brought low by the prankishly scheming servant woman Maria (humorously earthy Bernadette Sullivan).

Despite those reliably professional turns, the proceedings aren’t perfect by any means. Some of the musical intervals lack luster, the dance sequences are unwieldy, and some actors need to work on their projection. Mostly, however, this starry “Night” is an entertaining night on the town that will suit your tastes and your budget.

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‘Twelfth Night’

Where: Shakespeare Stage, Barnsdall Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles

When: July 10, 11, 19, 20 and 27, Aug. 2, 8, 10, 13, 20 and 22

Price: Free, but reservations recommended

Contact: (323) 836-0288

Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes