TO FEB. 10

There’ve been more local variations of Twelfth Night than you could shake a speare at. So with the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express’ interpretation and Play On! (the Duke Ellington version) having only recently closed, why do another? “Ours is under two hours,” Glamonstrosity Inc. artistic director Chris Griffin says in his press release. “Plus, you can drink.” Not that you’d need a few to enjoy this rollicking version, set not in Illyria—as Shakespeare intended—but in Roswell, N.M., where a UFO has just crashed, Ed Wood-style, stranding the alien Viola (Ricardo Evans) and her twin brother, Sebastian (Matthew Walsh, pictured). This bawdy comedy, with its classic Shakespearian cross-dressing deceptions and confused affections, is ready-made for gender-bent casting, and Glamonstrosity does not disappoint on that score: Viola, a traditionally female character who disguises herself as a man to serve Duke Orsino (Mark Rubin), is played as a gay man, while Malvolio (Rebecca Dreyfuss, made up with an amusing unibrow), the manservant who pines for his Lady Olivia, is cast as a woman. Perhaps Shakespeare always envisioned such possibilities: The play’s dialogue—which is rendered faithfully from the original—is even funnier against a backdrop of sexual ambiguity. Tony Greenberg is hilarious as the gaseous Sir Toby Belch. And Callie Kimball works well enough as Olivia, although she might be better received if she didn’t slur so many of her lines. Maybe she had a few of those drinks Griffin was talking about. Glamonstrosity Inc.’s production of Twelfth Night lands at 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, to Saturday, Feb. 10, at the Metro Cafe, 1522 14th St. NW. $12. (703) 521-8514. (Howard Witt)