Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Sidney Harman Hall, Washington, DC

 

Rick Holmes and Kate Jennings Grant as Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. Photo credit: Shakespeare Theatre Company. 

I’ve never been a “Shakespeare purist.” His plays have a timelessness that many seem perfectly made for cross-cultural casting, wherein neither the race nor the gender of the actor need always match. A little editing here and there, dropping or changing aspects of some less important characters, and exploring different locales and periods can reveal the central truths of the plays in unexpected ways. What does not change in these instances (other than some deletions, perhaps) is the playwright’s language.

My biggest regret about the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Much Ado About Nothing is that I did not see it in time to shout its virtues to the world sooner. (Its last performance is December 11.) This is one of the most creative stagings of Shakespeare that I’ve ever seen. In one of my earlier entries, I mentioned remembering seeing a production of Much Ado more than 30 years ago set in Cuba in the late 1940s. A recent Shakespeare-in-the-Park production (filmed for PBS) was set in Georgia with an all-Black cast – the set even featured a large banner advertising Stacey Abrams as a candidate for governor. This production’s director, Simon Godwin, recently directed a production in London set in the 1930s in a hotel on the Italian Riviera. So why all this “ado” about Much Ado? Perhaps because it is one of the wittiest of Shakespeare’s rom-coms, with its depictions of parallel couples (the youthful Hero and Claudio and the more mature, at least age-wise, Beatrice and Benedick) engaged at various times in their own “battles of the sexes.”

Initially planned for 2020 and delayed due to the pandemic, the company’s determination to bring this to the stage pays off immensely.

The setting has been changed from 16^th century Sicily to 2022 DC, specifically the Washington news studio of SNN (the Shakespeare News Network, of course). In a world where we continue to try to separate misinformation and disinformation from truth, setting the play in a newsroom makes perfect sense, since much of the play revolves around real and perceived truths and intentional misrepresentations (“fake news”).

The constantly-arguing Beatrice and Benedick are being reunited as co-anchors of a news program, which also features the lovely Hero the sports anchor and the enamored Claudio the new weatherman. Leonato, father to Hero and uncle to Beatrice, is the network’s manager. To celebrate Benedick’s return to the anchor chair after an absence and the debut of Claudio in his role, Leonato stages a costume ball. Instead of holding simple masks, we see characters dressed as Batman and Robin, Marilyn Monroe, Babe Ruth, Amelia Earhart, an astronaut, an Olympic runner, and other contemporary characters. Disguised and masked, Benedick meets Beatrice, who is not happy with his return. Not recognizing him, Beatrice tells him just what she thinks of Benedick.

Also at the ball are Don Pedro, now a media mogul, and his disgraced, brother, Don John, just out of prison. After Claudio’s proposal of marriage is announced, Don John determines that he will somehow ruin the newly-engaged couple, for no apparent reason. He’s a villain and that’s what villains do. With his friend Borachio, he stages a scene in which Claudio and Don Pedro see someone they believe to be the beloved Hero being intimate with someone else. Having seen incriminating evidence with his own eyes, Claudio resolves revenge on the now-besmirched Hero by disrupting their wedding.

When responding to a question from the officiant as to whether he knows of any reason the marriage should not take place, Claudio announces that he does and proceeds to announce to the assembled guests that she is not the “maiden” she was thought to be. Hero faints and Claudio leaves, assuming that she is dead. After some rather bumbling security guards overhear Borachio describing his misdeeds, Hero’s virtue is confirmed. Borachio confesses and Don John escapes. Still believing her dead, a now repentant Claudio agrees to marry Hero’s cousin (who, of course, is the real Hero). Beatrice and Benedick are at last of similar minds, and a double wedding ensues.

More simply put in the production’s program:

Benedick and Beatrice don’t love each other but then they do. Claudio and Hero love each other at first sight but then they don’t love each other and then they do again. Everyone gets married.

The company goes all in on their Much Ado About Nothing SNN milieu. The amazing set designed by Alexander Dodge combines elements of technology (television screens and cameras streaming live action on stage and re-created action) primarily on a sleek, contemporary set of the news studio, including an upstairs control room. But when the stage’s huge turntable turns, we see other locations (the security guards’ office, the site of the costume party, etc.) rendered in equally-intricate detail. The live and taped or streamed elements are seamless. The projections are designed by Aaron Rhyne. This newsroom setting appears ready for the characters’ real-life counterparts to take their seats. (There’s even a “cameo” video appearance by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.)

Shakespeare didn’t write the occasional interpolations summarizing Shakespearean news: dispatches from Elsinore confirming the death of Hamlet’s father, from Rome describing the assassination of Julius Caesar, and the cumulative deaths of King Lear and his family, among others, but I think he would have appreciated the nods to his other creations. I understand these to be the contributions of dramaturg Emily Burns. And I think he would approve of Friar Francis’s transition to Sister Francis, wearing kente cloth as part of her pastoral vestments.

STC artistic director Simon Godwin is the mastermind behind this production. In addition to the amazing physical production (credit to costume designer Evie Gurney, lighting designer Donald Holder), there is not an inconsistent or weak presence on the stage by any actor. Even the actors with the shortest amount of time on stage create vivid characters. I particularly enjoyed the staging of the costume ball and its constantly changing focus.

Rick Holmes and Kate Jennings Grant are attractive and well-matched as news co-anchors and would-be lovers Benedick and Beatrice. Holmes is an especially adept physical comedian reminiscent of Dick Van Dyke as he finds himself on the receiving end of a fire extinguisher and flailing around the stage as a result, having failed to adequately hide himself from a conversation he is trying to overhear. Grant also has fine comic moments as she slowly emerges from a trash receptacle where she hides, only to have more and more trash heaped upon her. A balance between Beatrice and Benedick is needed, as the audience needs to see both of their sides, but just as other characters see that Beatrice and Benedick are well-matched, so are these two actors. Their scenes sizzle with sarcasm and wit.

While Beatrice and Benedick demonstrate “mature” love, Hero and Claudio are their youthful counterparts. Nicole King plays Hero with a sexy, delicate touch and Paul Deo Jr. plays Claudio with an initial earnestness, then indignation when he believes that Hero has been “disloyal,” and finally repentance he learns of her innocence.

DC theatre master actor Edward Gero brings dignity and authority to his role as Leonato. Carlo Alban is suitably patrician as Don Pedro and Justin Adams and Michael Kevin Darnall suitably sleazy as the conspirators trying to derail the wedding between Hero and Claudio. Nehassalu deGannes plays Sister Francis with dignity and authority. Dave Quay is the master of verbal doubletalk as the bumbling guard Dogberry and his compadres played by David Bishins, Quinn M. Johnson, and Raven Lorraine demonstrate their own fine comic timing and physicality.

In short, the audience on the night I saw it loved it, and so did I. Although its newsroom setting is particularly meaningful for the Washington audience, I believe it would play well in any theatre in the country or as a PBS production. Thank you, STC, for sticking to this delightful interpretation.