In 2021, the Public Theater reopened the Delacorte Theater with Jocelyn Bioh’s Merry Wives, a jubilant update of The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Saheem Ali. It was the palate cleanser we sorely needed after the prior year’s pandemic-forced Shakespeare in the Park shutdown—fast-paced, laugh-filled, intermission-free, and still full of substance.
The Public took the same approach to this summer’s programming, reopening after an 11-month closure for a much-needed renovation with a spirited, star-packed production of Shakespeare’s giddiest and queerest comedy, Twelfth Night, directed by Ali. Barring any rain delays, you’ll be bouncing out of Central Park by 10 p.m.
It’s easy to see why the public—and the Public—love Twelfth Night. This is the third version at the Delacorte in recent memory: In 2018, Shaina Taub composed a swingy score for a massive community-driven Public Works production; back in 2009, Dan Sullivan directed a top-shelf ensemble that included Anne Hathaway, Audra McDonald, Raúl Esparza, Julie White, and Jay O. Sanders.
The biggest strength of this current production—beyond its general jubilant mood—is its central casting: a real-life brother-sister duo, Junior Nyong’o and Lupita Nyong’o, as the play’s shipwrecked siblings, Sebastian and Viola, respectively.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Think about it: When was the last time you saw two actual blood relatives playing twins in Twelfth Night? (Or the Antipholi and the Dromios in The Comedy of Errors?) Suddenly, it’s kind of believable when everyone in Illyria gets them confused—especially since Viola is dressed as a boy called Cesario.
This is part of what makes Twelfth Night such frivolous fun. There’s no real reason for Viola’s crossdressing. In As You Like It, Rosalind puts on a male disguise to protect herself while she’s roaming around in the Forest of Arden; conveniently, as the boy Ganymede, she’s also able to tutor her love, Orlando, in the ways of wooing. In The Merchant of Venice, Portia plays a lawyer, Balthazar, because her husband’s BFF is in desperate need of defense, lest he lose a pound of flesh. Viola masquerading as a eunuch and going to work for the country’s reigning royal seems little more than a whim: “What else may hap, to time I will commit,” she tells the captain (Joe Tapper) who brought her ashore. In other words, que será, será!
That freewheeling spirit runs throughout Ali’s production, which plants the play’s subtitle, What You Will, at the back of the stage in giant red marquee-style letters—a choice that surely would have pleased literary critic Harold Bloom. “I am a little sorry that Shakespeare used Twelfth Night as his primary title,” he wrote. “What You Will is better, and among much else means something like Have at You!”
Nothing is taken too seriously. The movie-star-handsome Duke Orsino (Khris Davis) might be wallowing in the depths of love, but he’s still got to look good: “If music be the food of love, play on,” he declares between bicep curls. He’s surrounded by a chest-thumping, ego-pumping, well-suited male entourage and oversize portraits of himself. Hopelessly self-involved, narcissistic, image-obsessed—Viola should run the other way, but, like so many women before and so many women after her, she falls head over heels in love.
Problem: She’s dressed as Cesario, whose duties include giving her buff boss a post-workout massage and singing sweet ballads such as “Malaika.” (Ali, who grew up in Kenya with the Nyong’os, has given both of their characters some lines in Swahili.) Plus, Orsino is pining for the Countess Olivia (Sandra Oh, in an all-too-rare stage appearance), and sends Cesario to woo the recalcitrant countess on his behalf. That plan backfires spectacularly when Olivia falls in love with Orsino’s not-quite-a-man-servant. Then there’s Olivia’s steward, the much-maligned Malvolio (Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage, stomping, side-eyeing, and scene-stealing up a storm), who harbors fantasies of marrying his mistress. And we can’t forget Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Jesse Tyler Ferguson, a master of Shakespearean comedy); the dim-witted knight thinks he’s a potential suitor for Olivia, yet he spends all of his time chugging canned red wine, taking bong hits, and chilling in the hot tub with her uncle, the perpetually drunk Sir Toby Belch (John Ellison Conlee).
Spoiler: Only one of the aforementioned lovers gets what they want. Yet Twelfth Night is perhaps Shakespeare’s happiest play. Somehow, even Malvolio storming out and vowing revenge isn’t as problematic as it usually is; Dinklage manages to find a tiny sliver of humor in that discordant moment.
And no matter what you do, do not leave before the curtain call, when everyone is rewarded with a spanking-new Oana Botez–designed costume—presumably one that represents their characters’ true selves. You’ve never seen such a fabulous rainbow collection of corsets, capes, overskirts, cummerbunds, and caftans.
Twelfth Night opened Aug. 21, 2025, at the Delacorte Theater and runs through Sept. 14. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
