June 27 (Bloomberg) -- Anne Hathaway, Audra McDonald and Raul Esparza in “Twelfth Night” -- that trio offers star power equal to any we’ve come to expect from the Public Theater’s free Shakespeare in New York’s Central Park. Now add formidable support from Michael Cumpsty, David Pittu and Julie White, along with flashy direction from Daniel Sullivan, and you have a rollicking show.

Is it entirely Shakespeare? Perhaps it doesn’t matter in this comedy of cross-dressing, mistaken identity and final marital bliss.

Hathaway, though slightly shortchanging the poetic, expertly blends the boyish and the womanly in Viola. McDonald, while playing a more contemporary, less aristocratic Olivia, invests her with brio. Cumpsty, auburn-wigged, puts across Malvolio’s arrogance and subsequent pathos perfectly.

Sullivan is, to be sure, a canny director and you may observe countless clever staging touches. These include making the knolls of John Lee Beatty’s ravishing, if problematic set into veritable playground slides; having the newly deluded Malvolio first appear as a fatuously smiling, seemingly disembodied Cheshire-cat head; getting the scared Sir Andrew Aguecheek fall as if thunderstruck flat on his back; and much, much more.

No Shades

Lusty business indeed, but “Twelfth Night” is in some ways a dark comedy. Not for nothing does it begin with a shipwreck in which a principal character may have drowned, soon followed by Feste the Fool’s song invoking mortality (“come away death”), and leading to an ending with the melancholy ditty about the rain that “raineth every day” (which our current weather all too obligingly corroborates).

The production’s chief problem is encapsulated in that pastoral set. It’s a romantic garden sporting lush grass and bosky knolls. A path atop a verdant embankment is lined with dwarf trees harboring hidden lights that will illuminate the climax. The hills provoke droll slidings down and agile leaps up; the shrubbery provides nifty concealment for plotters. Yet there’s no trace of a human habitat in this place of enchantment -- best for some other play.

The same may be said of Jane Greenwood’s exuberant costumes. Even Julie White’s Maria, Countess Olivia’s mere retainer, gets ever fancier costume changes. The identical shipwrecked twins, Viola and Sebastian, wear almost too adorable outfits, and the ducal soldiery boasts fanciful uniforms right out of some Ruritanian operetta.

Feminine Mystique

Shakespeare doesn’t call for final feminine costume for Viola, into which the staging allows her miraculously to change.

So be it. Supporting the felicitous leads, David Pittu is a riotous and well-sung Feste, with the right touch of troubling insolence; White milks Maria’s laughs with cowgirlish expertise; Jay O. Sanders precisely balances Sir Toby Belch’s overbearingness with deflatability; and Hamish Linklater’s over- the-top Aguecheek overdoes so consummately it feels like underplaying.

My only quarrel is with the wonderful Raul Esparza, whose Duke Orsino could use more hauteur and a less Orphan Annieish wig, and who might show greater affection for Viola as a boy to make his prompt embrace of her as a fiancee more believable.

There is imaginative lighting by Peter Kaczorowski, appealing music by Hem, suitably restrained choreography by Mimi Lieber and comic but not excessively grotesque swordsmanship by Rick Sordelet.

Still, this “Twelfth Night” is mostly for gushing innocents or indulgent sophisticates; those in between had better beware.

Typically of this production, Malvolio’s ominous threat of revenge is totally offset by that final song being delivered not by the Fool, alone onstage and soberly advocating that each “make content with his fortune’s fit,” but with the entire company exulting, as the principals join hands for a round dance in Felliniesque ecstasy. With visual opulence and directorial connivance, slaphappiness prevails.

Through July 12 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, enter at Fifth Ave. at 79th St. or Central Park West at 81st St. Information: +1-212-539-8750; http://www.publictheater.org. Rating: ****

What the Stars Mean:
****       Do Not Miss
***        Excellent
**         Good
*          Poor
(No stars) Worthless

(John Simon is the New York drama critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: John Simon in New York at jis1925@aol.com.

Last Updated: June 27, 2009 00:00 EDT