Onstage: Twelfth Night

So it’s the holidays and you want to go to the theater but you really don’t care much for all the good cheer and midnight ghosts. What to do? I recommend Twelfth Night at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company (CSC). I think it’s Shakespeare’s wittiest and most charming comedy, one of those twisted-up mistaken identity pieces that’s romantic, hilarious and beautifully resolved. It also offers a set of comic characters — Sir Toby Belch, a spiritual cousin of the rabble-rousing Falstaff, and Malvolio, a stuffy, self-important servant who gets a major comeuppance — who will keep you smiling through an entire evening of theater. The story has been transported to the 1920s in the United States and utilizes an “anything goes” attitude from the early years of the Prohibition era. Director Jeremy Dubin, a member of CSC’s company for a decade, says, “Twelfth Night has so many story elements that resonate with the Roaring 20s. Women were becoming more independent. Prohibition created a black market in bootleg alcohol that led to a lot of outrageous behavior, a perfect opportunity for Shakespeare’s drunken rascal Sir Toby Belch to make mischief. And the birth of Jazz created a free-wheeling atmosphere where the desire for true love was often at odds with the social mandate to be the life of the party.” You’re invited to this party, too. It continues through Jan. 4. $20-$26. Read Rick Pender's review here.