A Hard Day's Twelfth Night?

Marin Shakespeare’s newest offering is not your father’s Twelfth Night – or maybe it is, depending who your daddy used to hang with. This one’s a psychedelic stew of hot colors, hot babes, cross-dressers and funky costumes, all served up in Shakespearean sauce.

If the set’s stylized flowers and lava lamps haven’t convinced you, then the entrance of the miniskirted Valentines singing “My Heart is Cryin’”with a Sgt. Pepper-suited Duke Orsino should complete the picture: this is Twelfth Night’s summer of love. However, the Duke is suffering because the beautiful Lady Olivia won’t give him the time of day. She’s in mourning for her lost brother; he pounds out his disappointment in a drum solo.

Then a trio of sailors (choruses of “Aaargh!”) arrives with a shipwrecked Viola, also grieving because her brother was also lost at sea and presumed dead. Viola begs the captain to get her a serving position with the Duke – this will involve wearing a man’s clothing – and they promise to help her “like a bridge over troubled waters.”

There’s more. Sir Toby Belch, played by Robert Currier, one of Marin Shakespeare’s founders, arrives inebriated as always, and belching. He takes a turn at the harmonica. And the fussy Sir Andrew Aguecheek “accosts” the serving girl Maria with a ukulele riff on “Tiptoe through the Tulips” before attempting a re-enactment of the Funky Chicken, a high-risk endeavor in high platform soles.

We’ll hear from Olivia’s Bob Dylan-like clown, Feste, and her funereal steward, Malvolio. But we’ll also get Malvolio delivering Shakespeare’s original speech about “Some are born great.”

It’s a romp of a production with chases up and down the stairs, dueling golf clubs, revealed identities and a wedding performed by the Maharishi. Throughout, the audience hums along with the musical numbers and howls at the costumes. How did all this mayhem come together?

Twelfth Night, or All You Need is Love was itself a labor of love from Robert and Lesley Currier, the play’s directors. Program notes explain that the Curriers have been bringing Shakespeare to Baja for the last nine years, and that their musical version of Taming of the Shrew had been a great hit there. Twelfth Night was born out of “opportunities . . . to speak glorious language and enliven complex characters, but also to sing and dance.” In this Marin production, one of the cast members, Camilla Ford, also played Sir Andrew Aguecheek last year in Baja.

The large cast has some outstanding principal players: William Elsman as the lovesick Duke Orsino, Cat Thompson as the elusive Lady Olivia, Alexandra Matthew as the cross-dressing and shipwrecked Viola, with Lucas McClure as guitar-strumming Feste and Jack Powell as the unlucky Malvolio. (All these deserve an additional “Huzzah!” for performing in all three of Marin Shakespeare’s overlapping offerings this summer – an astonishing feat for those of us who struggle to remember our four-digit PIN numbers.) Terry Rucker doubles as Viola’s rescuing Sea Captain and the marrying Maharishi. Shannon Veon Kase is the resourceful servant, Maria.

The play’s remarkable costumes were the creations of Abra Berman, and Billie Cox arranged the sound. Psychedelic light effects (unseen, unfortunately, at the matinee) were assembled by Ellen Brooks.

Twelfth Night, or All You Need is Love is playing in repertory at the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre at Dominican University through Sunday, Sept. 27. At present, it’s alternating with The Importance of Being Earnest, and after August 21, it will alternate with Julius Caesar. For a complete schedule, see the website, www.marinshakespeare.com or call the box office, 499-4488.

The amphitheatre has free parking and bench seating, and it opens an hour before the performance to allow time for picnicking. As with all open-air performances, especially in the evening, bring extra clothing to allow for changes in weather.