A NEW DAY FOR `TWELFTH NIGHT'? : LYRIC COMEDY NOT THE BARD WE USUALLY SEE.

Byline: Peter Marks The New York Times

Here's the pitch: A young woman and her twin brother are separated during a shipwreck. Thinking the brother is dead, she goes AWOL dressed as a man and winds up on the estate of a pretty young countess, who goes gaga for the girl in disguise. Who, in turn, falls for the hunky royal in the big house next door.

Back on the countess' spread, there are lots of high jinks by the wacky staff members, who are bent on taking the household's snooty butler down a peg. When the dust settles, the butler has been made to look like a fool, the girls and guys have sorted each other out, and the twins find each other, happy and alive.

Oh, and one other thing. The actors speak in upper-class English accents, uttering lines like, ``Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight?''

Doesn't sound as if it has the makings of a major motion picture? Think again. The plot belongs to ``Twelfth Night,'' the Shakespearean comedy, coming to a theater near you.

The film, which opened Friday, features a gold-plated cast of British actors (Nigel Hawthorne, Ben Kingsley, Richard E. Grant, Helena Bonham Carter) and a director, Trevor Nunn, known for his stagings of the classics and of Broadway musicals like ``Cats.''

It is both an elegant treatment of a serious work and the most recent example of one of the unlikeliest trends in movie making: The Elizabethans are in.

Well, one Elizabethan in particular.

From ``Henry V'' to ``Much Ado About Nothing'' to the Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh versions of ``Hamlet'' and the Ian McKellen and Al Pacino adaptations of ``Richard III,'' there are more plays by Shakespeare on screen these days than on many filmgoers' bookshelves.

The clamor to put more Shakespeare on celluloid began with Branagh's resounding artistic and commercial success with ``Henry V'' in 1989. And many of the works that filmmakers have since gravitated to - the history plays, with their bloody battle scenes, and tragedies like ``Hamlet'' and ``Romeo and Juliet'' - are well suited to American audiences. Even ``Much Ado About Nothing'' has what a Hollywood movie marketer might describe as a rollicking love story for the '90s.

But ``Twelfth Night''? Playgoers may adore its humanity, insight and verbal magic: ``If music be the food of love, play on,'' the Duke of Illyria implores in the play's first scene. The characters, from the spirited Viola, the woman disguised as a man, to the arrogant Malvolio, the retainer who becomes the butt of the household's cruel joke, may be among the most original in Shakespeare's canon.

Still, can the machinations of lovers and plotters in fictional Illyria do much for a modern movie audience? Does an intricate Renaissance plot exploring the psychology of sexual identity have mass appeal?

Some of the most ardent fans of the play wonder if ``Twelfth Night'' is too obscure and too subtle for the big screen.

``It doesn't have a great story or through line,'' observed Rosemarie Tichler, artistic producer of the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival.

Though she adores the work - ``I love it because it has some of the most beautiful poetry ever written; it just makes me weep'' - she says that a definitive interpretation has eluded contemporary directors.

In 1989, a star-studded Shakespeare Festival version in Central Park, featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Goldblum and Gregory Hines, was a critical flop.

``I'm just thinking,'' Tichler said. ``I have never seen a great `Twelfth Night.' ''

Nunn, however, hopes that he has filmed one. The former director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, who takes over as director of the Royal National Theater in London next fall, he has long wanted to take on ``Twelfth Night,'' a play that he has never directed on a stage. Several attempts fell through because of scheduling and other logistical problems.

Nunn sees all of life refracted through the prism of ``Twelfth Night, Or What You Will,'' to give the play its full title. ``It's about disguise, in terms of hypocrisy and self-deception as well as those obvious elements of disguise, people dressing up,'' he said in a telephone interview from his London office. ``It's about mortality, the transience of youth, the transience of the happiness we associate with youth.

``But more centrally, it's about gender,'' he continued. ``It's the most fundamental Shakespearean play about sexuality and gender, and Shakespeare's perception of gender. Shakespeare is saying: Is there a degree of bisexuality in all of us? Is it possible that what is feminine in men is extraordinarily attractive to women, and what is male in female is extraordinarily attractive to men?''

The casting of the young lovers, particularly the men, adheres to Nunn's vision of the male-female crossover. Imogen Stubbs (familiar to American television audiences from the English detective series, ``Anna Lee,'' shown on A&E, and the director's wife) plays Viola; Bonham Carter is Olivia, the countess; Stephen Mackintosh is Viola's twin, Sebastian, and Toby Stephens, the son of Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, portrays Orsino, the duke.

The director said that for the men, especially Stephens, he wanted masculine actors who could convey in this story of hidden sexuality a bit more than ``square-jawed male friendship.''

In Nunn's interpretation, the relationship between the Duke and Viola, in her male guise, is ambiguous and blossoms into love the moment she reveals herself to be a woman.

To Nunn, the result is that no play of Shakespeare's is more accessible to modern eyes and ears. ``The way Shakespeare expressed it seems to be completely contemporary,'' he said.

``I happen to think `Twelfth Night' is a masterpiece, a perfect work of art,'' Nunn said. ``There are not many things you can say that about. `The Marriage of Figaro,' I think Chekhov's `Three Sisters' is that, Jane Austen's `Emma,' Billy Wilder's `Some Like It Hot.' For each of those, you say: `That's it. It's complete.' ''

But while remaining faithful to Shakespeare's themes, Nunn had to make some concessions to both a mass audience and the demands of moviemaking. Like many of the Shakespeare movies (with the notable exception of Branagh's forthcoming epic-length ``Hamlet''), the film version of ``Twelfth Night'' is abridged and a bit rearranged.

Unlike the play, the $5 million movie, shot in seven and a half weeks in Cornwall, on England's southwestern coast, begins with an ambitious shipwreck sequence that also includes a voice-over narrative. The words are not those of the renowned 16th-century writer-in-the-ruff, but - gulp! - of Nunn.

``Yes, I wrote those lines,'' Nunn said, seeking to pre-empt any question that he was tampering with perfection. Cutting and reconceiving Shakespeare's plays is a common practice in the theater; sharing writing credit with him - the film's press materials note the ``screenplay by Trevor Nunn'' - is something only a movie director with a healthy ego could do.

``I really do have a sense that Shakespeare would have been an immensely willing collaborator,'' he said.

Nunn is hopeful that the refinements to the movie, produced by Stephen Evans and David Parfitt, two British producers, who also produced Branagh's ``Much Ado'' and ``Henry V,'' will help it find an American audience. He is a lot less concerned about Britain, where ``Twelfth Night'' is not only performed regularly, it's a crowd pleaser.

``When I ran the RSC, we would think of it as a box-office banker,'' he explained. ``If we needed to fill a theater, we'd say, `Let's do `Twelfth Night.' ''

THE FACTS

The film: ``Twelfth Night'' (PG; children might be bored by the characters' romantic problems).

The stars: Helena Bonham Carter, Richard E. Grant, Nigel Hawthorne, Ben Kingsley, Mel Smith, Imelda Staunton, Toby Stephens, Imogen Stubbs and Stephen Mackintosh.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Trevor Nunn. Written by Nunn, based on the play by William Shakespeare. Director of photography, Clive Tickner. Edited by Peter Boyle. Music by Shaun Davey. Production design by Sophie Becher. Produced by Stephen Evans and David Parfitt. Released by Fine Line Features.

Running time: One hour, 45 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle's Royal.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Helena Bonham Carter, left, Stephen Mackintos h, Imogen Stubbs and Toby Stephens star in the film version of Shakespeare's ``Twelfth Night.''

(2) Stubbs' Viola - disguised as a man - left, turns the head of Bonham Carter's countess Olivia in ``Twelfth Night,'' directed by Trevor Nunn.