Much Ado About Nothing
Colorado’s first Shakespearean comedy (in the order of opening), playing outdoors at the Mary Rippon Amphitheatre, features a coherent production concept, a strong heroine in Beatrice (with great comic timing from Karen Slack) and an hilarious take on the traditional clown role of Dogberry (CU Assistant Professor Chip Persons). Director Lynne Collins’ concept– placing Shakespeare’s complicated comedy in 1934 Barcelona– provides opportunity for designers to elaborate on the theme and for audiences to luxuriate in a lush, flamenco guitar soundscape by Kevin Dunayer.
For most of the Festival’s playgoers, designating the major characters as Nationalist soldiers returning from quelling a miner’s strike will not prove unsettling. However, I feel compelled to elaborate on conditions taking place at the time of Shakespeare’s writing to describe my own uneasiness about the transfer in time and tone.
Much Ado was composed close to 1598 when England was well on its way to empire building. She had annexed Wales, conquered Ireland, sacked Cadiz, and witnessed the second Spanish Armada destroyed by a storm. The atmosphere in London must have seemed progressively jubilant, thus enabling a celebratory tone in the first scene. “The shadow of war,” instead of looming ominously over the proceedings then, instead of hanging as a pall over the proceedings, recedes into the past as the focus passes to current festivities: a welcoming masque followed by preparations for a wedding that serves as the finale of the play.
As in many of Shakespeare’s works, vestiges of commedia dell arte appear in the characterizations of the villain, Don John (a dastardly Michael Kane); the lovers, Hero (Caitlin Wise) and Claudio (Ben Bonenfant); and, of course, the clown Dogberry. Layered onto an age-old melodrama of errors Shakespeare added the comic rivalry between Beatrice and Benedick (the charming Geoffrey Kent), which progresses on a fairly constant trajectory, especially when set against Don John’s convoluted shenanigans as he attempts to derail the young lovers’ wedding.
On the night I attended, the play got off to a slow start. The impact of the Nationalist brown shirts at first made it difficult to distinguish characters from one another. Soon, Steven Patterson as Don Pedro distinguished himself, and a sarcastic volley between Beatrice and Benedick set the comedy in motion. Among the serving women, Emily Schmidt-Beuchat made the most from an underwritten part, while the lovers Wise and Benenfant stood in perfect contrast to the signature pair.
As written, Dogberry is already a funny character, full of mispronouncements and windmill-tilting absurdities. But it is Director Collins’ and Person’s saving grace that the Spanish setting offers the occasion to show the town constable as a ridiculous Spanish grandee, complete with rolling “rrrs” and an elaborate lisp.
Collins makes good use of the outdoor environment, staging the funereal tableau against one of the permanent flagstone partitions while Andrea Bechert’s sunny Spanish courtyard works for everything from the masque to the final wedding. A comic interrogation of the thug Borachio (Doug Bynum) that takes place somewhere near an arch, however, seems to be lost in space. Costumes by Clare Henkel adhere to the period and Dunayer’s soundtrack is evocative. But Victor En Yu Tan’s lighting steals the show with a magnificent, Belasco-like sunrise that blooms over the set at the end of Claudio’s silent vigil for his love and finally settles into a perspective, direct sunlight heralding a new day and the revelation, as with any comedy, that all is well.
PHOTO: Left to Right: Geoffrey Kent as Benedick Karen Slack as Beatrice
Much Ado About Nothing continues in repertory with Hamlet (in the Mary Rippon Outdoor Amphitheatre) and Two Gentlemen From Verona (indoors) through August 15th. In addition, the Festival is offering productions of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). For production schedule and tickets phone 303.492.0554,visit the box office in the University Theater Building on the CU Boulder Campus, or on-line at www.coloradoshakes.org.