taffetyPunkShakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” begins with a shipwreck, with its passengers washing ashore on a strange island before the romantic comedy of errors and cross dressing begins.

But for the Taffety Punk version of the play, they linger a little longer in the water, or a world between the deep and the shore. Nobody speaks those delicious lines in burbles, but a lot of the denizens wear clothing with starfish on them, the greenery in the background looks a little like algae, and then there are those moments ‘where a giant clownfish floats by, as if a refugee from “Finding Nemo.”

Purists may be reassured that much of the Bard’s work is still intact (with such famous lines about “greatness thrust upon them” or “if music be the food of love, play on”) even as the insurrectionist troupe concentrates on the alternate (and original) title of the play, “…Or What You Will.”

Taffety Punk thinks of itself as a band more than an acting troupe, so when Death, as Feste begins crooning a tune, or Sir Toby Belch appears like a shipwrecked rocker playing electric guitar, it’s not out of character.  More than the occasional musical licks, there are moments of dance that poetically convey the action, particularly when the loving twins Viola and Sebastian twist in the deep sea grasping to a undulating cloth.  Mostly the group infuses the 400 year old play with an attitude and energy that makes it vital for a contemporary audience even as it continues the tradition of the popular play, which relies on mistaken identities and loving the wrong person.

Viola, played with earnestness by Esther Williamson, dresses as a male to survive the new land; as such, she’s in service to the Duke, Orsino, who is in love with the countess Olivia, played with verve by Tonya Beckman. But alas, Olivia falls in love with the lad Viola has become, Cesario.

Daniel Flint is strong as Malvolio, the steward who makes an ill-advised play for Olivia, while wearing an outlandish costume perfect for this production.

Ian Armstrong is so casual and assured as Toby Belch, he may have forged a direct connection between dissipated rocker and the play’s original drunken uncle.

A lot of what holds the play together are the interactions and gestures between the lines, particularly the sneer of Kimberly Gilbert as Feste, who instead of a jester is Death itself, goading on and commenting on the action.

Director Michelle Shupe, who also did the adaptation, keeps things active, lively, and moving. One marvelous device she uses is a giant picture frame in which poor Orsinio (Ricardo Frederick Evans) can swoon at his beloved Olivia. It’s a great likeness, as it is the actress herself who poses live in it.

While “Twelfth Night, or What You Will” may have been delighting audiences for hundreds of years, the sharp Taffety Punk Theatre production brings back a swagger and grit to the action that more elegant presentations of the Elizabethan age may have lost along the way. And then there’s that big fish, too.

“Twelfth Night” as presented by Taffety Punk, plays through Feb. 23 at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, 545 Seventh St. SE, Washington, D.C. 20003.