MacNichol, Green Photo by Craig Schwartz

Shakespeare's comedy of love, laughter, mistaken identities and comic revenge has been lighting up stages for centuries since first produced in 1602 in Elizabethan England. This summer has seen new productions at the outdoor Delacorte Theater in New York's Central Park as well as the Old Globe's outdoor Festival Theatre in San Diego's Balboa Park and probably many other venues coast to coast. And probably none of the play's productions is set in its original 17^th century setting.

This writer's first introduction to the play was at the Mark Taper Forum in 1981. In one of Artistic Director Gordon Davidson's many attempts to establish an acting repertory company, he paired the World Premiere of Chekhov in Yalta with Twelfth Night. Co-directors Ellis Rabb and Diana Maddux set Shakespeare's Illyria in Chekhov's Russia. Penny Fuller made a beguiling Viola/Cesario who awakened the lust in a mournful Olivia, delightfully played by Marian Mercer. Rene Auberjonois stole the show as Olivia's steward Malvolio. A year or two later, The Company of Angels, one of Los Angeles' first equity-waiver/99seat theater companies staged a version in their intimate playhouse on Vine Street in Hollywood. They set the action in Silent Movie Hollywood with Shakespeare's characters taking on the personas of Rudolph Valentino's Sheik, Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, etc.

The year 1992 saw two new productions of the play on Southern California stages. San Diego's Old Globe Theatre set their production in Egypt with pyramids as part of the scenery. Viola was deliciously played by a pre-Melrose Place and Desperate Housewives Marcia Cross. In one of its rare forays into Shakespeare, Costa Mesa's South Coast Repertory presented a Caribbean flavored gem featuring the Djimbe West African Dancers and Drummers, who went on to win a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for their musical performance.

Music was a big part of New York's Public Theater's staging in Central Park earlier this summer. Director Daniel Sullivan used Shakespeare's cue "If music be the food of love, play on." Set in the 18^th century, it featured a rich score, by the songwriting and producing team known as Hem, and starred Broadway musical stalwarts Audra McDonald as Olivia and Raul Esparza as Orsino. Heading the cast was film star Anne Hathaway as Viola. Hathaway displayed her musical chops at this year's Oscarcast, dueting with host Hugh Jackman.

Shakespeare's Illyria was actually on the Adriatic coast of Italy. Director Paul Mullins' Old Globe production's setting is inspired by the Aeolian Island of Lipari, which lies north of Sicily in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Mullins and costume designer Linda Cho set the action in the 1950s and the look is pure La Dolce Vita, only in glorious Technicolor. When the mourning Olivia (the extremely vivacious Katie MacNichol) makes her first appearance in her all black and extremely fashionable widow‘s garb, she channels Anita Ekberg by way of Lana Turner. Gerritt VanderMeer's Orsino at times strikes poses very similar to George Hamilton's Ivy Leaguer in Where The Boys Are. Then when chumming around with Cesario (Dana Green's Viola disguised as a young man) they seem like Tom and Dickie in Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley, also set in the 1950s on the Italian seacoast. Such is the joy and longevity of Shakespeare as interpreted by different directors. Besides MacNichol's comic gem of a performance, the comic highjinks are in the masterful hands of Patrick Page as the put upon Malvolio, Eric Hoffman as his nemesis Sir Toby Belch, Bruce Turk as the foolish suitor Sir Andrew Aguecheek and James Newcomb as Feste, who is the only character paid to be a Fool.

"Twelfth Night" plays in repertory with Cyrano de Bergerac and Coriolanus on San Diego's Old Globe Theatre outdoor Festival Stage in Balboa Park through September 27. Curtain is at 8 pm, Tues-Sun. Tickets are $29-$68, with discounts for students, seniors and active military. Reservations: www.TheOldGlobe.org or (619) 23-GLOBE.