Yukio Ninagawa has been mounting productions of Shakespeare for more than three decades, but his ninth visit to the Barbican marks the first time that the great director has turned fully to the venerable Japanese art of kabuki to do so. The risk was worth it. Performed by members of the long-time company Shochiku Grand Kabuki, Ninagawa’s version of Twelfth Night is a wise and exquisite popular comedy, exceptionally pretty to look at as it showcases some outstanding and often gender-bending performances.

Kabuki has been an all-male preserve since the 17th century, its conventions and techniques passed on from one generation to the next. This includes the tradition of the onnagata whereby certain actors specialise in female characters. So there could hardly be a more apt choice of play than the tale of Viola, separated from her twin brother Sebastian during a storm at sea and compelled to masquerade as a manservant to the lovelorn Count Orsino.

Kabuki lends the Bard’s themes of illusion, delusion and confusion an extra layer of artifice and poignancy. These qualities are crystallised at the beginning of Act II, in a dance executed by the celebrated young actor Onoe Kikunosuke V. Cast as both Viola and Sebastian, in this scene he embodies a female character impersonating a man who is, in turn, sashaying about like a woman. And this just before a conversation about love.

Ninagawa underscores the play’s emotional delicacy — and its cruelty — without skimping on imaginative scenic effects (including a ship that seems about to glide right into the stalls, followed by a cracking storm) or robust humour. This comes to the fore in the handful of pranksters intent on puncturing Malvolio’s pomposity.

To this Westerner the actors played their parts as if in some delightfully alien, highly stylised sit-com. Certainly Onoe Kikugoro VII, double-cast as Malvolio and Feste, deserves his share of the plaudits. But, for me, the top prize would have to go to Ichikawa Kamejiro’s scene-stealing turn as the scheming chambermaid Maria. Nakamura Tokizo V is no slouch either as Olivia, outwardly demure and yet filled with a giddy wonder at her sudden titanic feelings for Viola in male guise.

Box office: 0845 1207550, to March 28. www.barbican.org.uk/bite

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