One line from “Twelfth Night” seemed prescient: “The rain it raineth every day” got a big laugh this week at The Public Theater's outdoor Delacorte venue, this viewer's second venture through Central Park to the idyllic staging of Shakespeare's comedy. Rained out one night, threatened another, such is the magic of Shakespeare in the Park. Is it worth it? The play's Illyria could be paradise, so green and hilly is this mythic place, and the mayhem and mirth wherein: a shipwreck, mistaken identity, cross dressing, swordfights, Shakespeare's signature off-color sight gags delivered by a first-rate ensemble cast led by Anne Hathaway, Audra McDonald, Raul Esparza under the fine direction of Daniel Sullivan, accompanied by the folksy music of the band, Hem. Once the show goes on, even the weather does not dampen the spirit of this play's whooping and wooing. Hathaway, so charming in “Prada,” and sarcastic in “Rachel Getting Married,” is sweetly innocent onstage as Viola/ Cesario, agile when she commands a sword, and dodges a stolen kiss. As she demonstrated at this year Academy Awards ceremony, the girl can sing. Of course she is no match for the monster musical talent of Audra McDonald, who as Olivia only sings a little. You want more of her, but that would upset the careful balances of this play's couplings. The ribaldry of Jay O. Sanders as Sir Toby Belch, Julie White as Maria, and Hamish Linklater as Andrew Aguecheek, and Michael Cumpsty's pouting and posturing in ridiculous yellow socks as Malvolio deserve mention. As all identities are revealed at play's end, and true lovers wed, moisture may come from the audience's tears of joy.

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