Shakespeare’s witty play Much Ado about Nothing, just opened at California Shakespeare Festival, provides clever physical comedy and two parallel love stories, one old and one young. Director Jonathan Moscone has created a seamlessly fast-paced production about love, both deferred and impetuous, along with villainy and betrayal. The celebratory finale is a joyous dance to love. Moscone’s exuberant use of unashamed mugging and physical asides enhances the tender romantic stories.
Soldiers returning from battle to Messina, Italy in the early part of the Nineteenth Century find new wars in the pastures of love. Aristocratic warrior Benedick resumes his interrupted love affair with Beatrice in a very quarrelsome manner, and young Claudio comes home to fall in love with Bea’s cousin Hero. The various royals and townspeople scheme to get
the couples together – or apart – and they all live happily ever after.
Emily Kitchens plays the quiet, polite Hero with a wide-eyed innocence. And Kitchens’ wide eyes can dominate the stage. She falls in love with the returning Claudio when he falls for her. Kitchens’ respectful and gentle portrayal makes Hero’s betrayal at the altar and subsequent feigned death deeply touching. When Hero is thrown to the floor by her intended groom, Kitchens thoroughly and convincingly projects her anguish and hurt.
Claudio’s unfortunately suspicious nature is a consistent undercurrent of Nick Childress’ portrayal. He carefully and calmly builds the tension at the altar, pretending to be the amiable but dubious suitor. Rashly taking revenge at a perceived wrong, his quick reversal when he throws the bride to her father’s knees gives a vivid glimpse into Claudio’s mind as he planned for this moment. He actually believed the slanders and evil rumors Prince Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother John had spread about her.
Don John is a sneering villain, played by Danny Scheie with a venomous intensity. There is more than one reason he is called “The Bastard.” Scheie enters the stage boldly on the two- and three-level open platforms signifying the house of Hero’s father Leonato (Dan Hiatt). Don John proclaims from on high his orders for revenge to his evil henchmen Borachio (Thomas Gorrebeeck) and Conrad (Michale Davison). His inhabitation of this part has a dense texture of vengeful bitterness.
But Scheie’s other part in the play, town Constable Dogberry, is inspired lunacy. Dogberry is caught between demographic groups in this early Shakespeare work. He is not of the Don Pedro and Leonato upper class, yet he assumes himself to be far above the miscreants he and his posse The Watch round up late at night. Scheie eagerly assumes the pomposity Dogberry associates with the upper classes while his elocution is barely above the level of a lager lout.
Scheie delivers Dogberry’s malapropisms and solecisms with hilarious certainty. When Dogberry’s miscreants are presented for sentencing, the magistrate pronounces him a shallow fool. Scheie’s ignorant self-pleased grin to be called such is an artful contrast to his melancholy, imperious attitude as Don John.
Beatrice and Benedick are an older couple very much in love, although you’d never think it, and possibly a former item. Benedick is the victorious lord, recently returned from fighting. Beatrice is sharply witty and defiantly cynical. In a war of “merry wits” the two always compete with clever insults and barbed comments.
As they vie to outwit, outsmart and out-insult the other, Associate Cal Shakes Artist Domenique Lozano strives to withstand Andy Murray’s prods as Benedick, but the actress is not mean and sardonic enough to withstand Benedick’s dominating aggressions. Sometimes serendipity is a brilliant solution, and she often wins the battles. Lozano’s hesitancy to commit and her defensive sarcastic mechanism give extra dimension to the part of Beatrice. However, her acquiescence to Benedick’s demands, after reading mutual love notes secreted by the townspeople co-conspirators, seems abrupt and unmotivated. There is no glimpse of internal thought and recognition; only a sudden decision to love Benedick, who vows that he will never marry. She also appears content never to marry.
Lozano carries off the “oh don’t bother” attitude effortlessly. There is an uncanny resemblance of the personal chemistry between Domenique and Andy and that of the fictional Beatrice and Benedick. The affection fades in and out, but the attraction of the last chance at love for two people who’ve been thwarted by their pasts is a vivid subtext to their final acceptance of each other.
Domenique Lozano as Beatrice could be meaner and more snarky in her line delivery, but she is a gentle soul and wades only in the shallow waters of provocative humiliation. Her finest acting occurs when she is sent to announce to Benedick that dinner is served. She turns away from him while remaining intensely focused on his character.
Andy Murray as Benedick looks and acts the part of a rigid soldier who is not comfortable with his softer emotional side. The actor artfully presents a confounding picture of befuddlement and some deeper emotion below the surface when Ben admits his love to Bea, resulting in a passionate smooch.
Moscone’s production carefully attends to Shakes’ elaborately worked puns and physical jokes. Themes of obvious incompatibility, false accusations of infidelity, and outright villainy create a redemptive, passionate tale of love realized by those who thought it had passed them by and those who took it for granted until it was nearly gone. In a funny, realistic production, the audience sees genuine emotional bonds being created on the stage.
Much Ado about Nothing continues through October 17 at Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way (formerly 100 Gateway Blvd.), Orinda. Tickets ($20 to $65) are available online at http://www.calshakes.org/v4/tickets or by phone at 510.548.9666.
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