SOURCE: "Slapstick 'Twelfth Night' with F. Murray Abraham," in The Christian Science Monitor, July 9, 1986, p. 24.

"What country, friends, is this?" asks the ship-wrecked Viola in the second scene of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

"This is Illyria, lady," replies the captain of the sunken vessel.

And so it is, in a manner of speaking, Shakespeare chose the name of an Adriatic city with a history rooted in antiquity as the setting for this comedy of mistaken identities and love at cross purposes.

Taking his cue from the play's full title, Twelfth Night or What You Will, director Wilford Leach has given the production a 16th-century, Eastern European touch. Costume designer Lindsay W. Davis has met the challenge with a colorfully exotic wardrobe that turns out to be the most fanciful and picturesque feature of the New York Shakespeare Festival production at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

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