ROYAL OAK, Mich.–Twelfth Night is one of those Shakespeare plays that’s easy to follow and hard not to like. Well, as long as you have seen some Shakespeare before. That’s because we have the familiar Shakespearean plot device of a woman disguised as a boy, Viola (Maggie Beson) who falls in love with a Duke (Jason Garza) who is in love with a Countess (Hannah Kelley-Niece). And there is a mouthy steward, Malvolio, (Dennis Kleinsmith) who loves Olivia, and an ensemble of funny, foppish wing characters.

This production, by Water Works Theatre Company for the 16th annual Shakespeare Royal Oak festival in Starr Jaycee Park, not only does the old play proud, but the company managed to get right what few outdoor companies do these days–they got the sound engineering utterly correct.

It may sound like a small thing, but it isn’t. Water Works and many other outdoor companies have struggled mightily in recent years to get the hang of correct sound engineering in a park setting. In fact, every company doing outdoor should ring up director Nancy Kammer to talk to the sound designer. Rather than face-mics, which is the norm these days, there were several stand mics in front of the stage that worked perfectly (to my surprise)  to project the voices over the crowd.

But enough of the sound. Beson as Viola has the perfect androgynous beauty to make her character scan as a boy, Cesario, throughout the story until the end of the play when her identity is revealed. Kelley-Niece as Countess Olivia, the wealthy countess who falls for Cesario, not knowing he is really Viola, is also very strong.

The ensemble of Twelfth Night is what any lead could ask for with experienced hands such as Barton Bund playing Olivia’s sing-songy randy uncle Toby, JM Ethridge as Olivia’s “gentle-woman” attendant, Kleinsmith as the often hapless steward Malvolio who can be so easily hoodwinked that the beautiful Olivia is really in love with him. And Dan Johnson as Feste, the Jester. Johnson is especially stand-out in his performance, bringing brash and scrappy levity to many a scene. And Bund’s smooth work is very much in evidence, his presence often seeming to ground and steady the rest of the players.

All of the players here have their iambic pentameter down pretty damn well, and get what is often the most difficult with Shakespeare, which is literally knowing where to put the emphasis on the dialogue to make it sound like…dialogue. The time of the play is not fixed, and thought the dialogue is Elizabethan for sure, we see modernity rear its head in the form of an old radio, a Walkman and boom-box. The play, which was written to run around Christmas in Shakespeare’s time, also has a version of The 12 Days of Christmas being sung by the players.

The simple set design is a two-story wooden piece that doubles for the festival’s other production running concurrently, Richard III.

In short, this Twelfth Night under the summer skies of this most Royal of Oaks is a delight. It runs through August 7, so catch it while you can along with the company’s Richard III.

Click here for show days, times and details.