Review: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at Old Globe Theatre - San Diego

This go-round, the optimal word is MUCH.

The world of Barry Edelstein’s high octane spin on MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at The Old Globe Theater is much of a much, containing much of just about everything. The outdoor production is stuffed full of music, both warbled and played with characters belting out everything from “Sigh no More, Ladies” to favorites from Glen Campbell and Whitney Houston. Scenic flourishes? Yes, plenty, from fake trees climbed to cold plunges endured, all in the name of comic deception. Much eye candy, too.  While bickering Beatrice and Benedick figure out (with help) that they belong in each other’s arms and the younger Claudio and Hero overcome a bit of outside villainy to reach their happy ending, events unfold amidst so…much…color. Between the Day-Glo pastels and polka dots of Lawrence E. Moton III’s sets, Russell H. Campa’s lighting and the beachy floral hues of Tilly Grimes’s costumes, this present day Messina positively dazzles. In his program notes, Edelstein declared his intent to take audiences on a night and day departure from his last effort: a spring production of Ibsen’s HEDDA GABLER fronted by Katie Homes, also at the Globe. Not having seen the HEDDA, I nonetheless figure it’s a pretty safe bet that we have mission every bit accomplished. Of Shakespeare’s comedies, MUCH ADO is a tough one to ruin and Edelstein’s cast, crew and musicians have worked awfully hard to make this merry. The results are damned near irresistible.

Veteran Globe-goers and newbies both to the venue - and to the play - should be tickled. The Old Globe has been producing plays for coming up on 90 years, building its reputation on the works of Shakespeare long before it started sending musicals to Broadway. Now staging Shakespeare primarily during the summer, under the stars at the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, the company offers both traditional renderings and productions like this MUCH ADO. In addition to all the present day contemporary flourishes, Edelstein has also added snatches of contemporary language including some meta-Bard references. His cast mixes actors who have plenty of Bard experience (notably Seth Gilliam, Jose Balistrieri and Benito Martinez) with performers who have come largely from musical theater. Apart from a turn in Edelstein’s production of the HENRY 6 plays two summers ago, the production’s Benedick and Beatrice do not have a single professional Shakespeare credit. Does this matter? Not so very much. Tally Sessions (COMPANY, WAR PAINT) and Eden Espinosa (LEMPICKA, WICKED) ably carry the production, handling the language and each other, and they sing like the pros they are.

Espinosa’s Beatrice opens the show, doing a more thoughtful than mournful riff on “Sigh no More, Ladies” before handing over her electric guitar for others to pick up. With his mustache, and black tank, Balistrieri bears a more than passing resemblance to Freddie Mercury, and rocks correspondingly when he rips that same guitar for a musicalized snatch of “To Please the Dull Fools.”

And this is barely even a warm-up. During the second act masked revels, which finds Prince Don Pedro (Gilliam) wooing Hero (Stephanie Hinck), daughter of his host Leonato (Martinez) on behalf of Count Claudio (Ainsley Melham), the music gets going. Specifically, we have a karaoke sing-off with Espinosa’s Beatrice singing Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drop Dead;” Sessions’s Benedick one-upping with Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman”, and just about everybody else testing their falsetto bona-fides on, of all things, A-ha’s “Take on Me.”   Between the vocals of its cast and the accompaniment of Morgan Hollingsworth, the production knows how to launch into a party mood…even for parties that go sour like the wedding of Claudio and Hero in Act 4.

MUCH ADO is at heart a romantic comedy, the laughs of which – as well as the temporary gloom - stem from trickery, and the production deftly handles its broad strokes. As they gull the hidden Beatrice into the news that Benedick secretly loves her, Hinck and Shalyn Welch’s Ursula enjoy the relaxation/discomfort of a transfer from a cold plunge to a sauna – a procedure that taxes Welch to great comic effect. (For the record, instead of her traditional role as one of Hero’s ladies in waiting, Ursula is reimagined for this production as the younger wife of Leonato, making her Hero’s step-mother.)   

As the malapropping Constable Dogberry, Jimmy Smagula gets into the comic act rendering a Joysey cop with a romantic spirit (he enters singing “That’s Amore”) and over-working some “nay,” “yay” low comic schtick with Kristina Hinako’s Verges.

Bully for the production and particularly for Hinck, by the by, for infusing Hero with something beyond the simpering fidelity of the wrongly-accused. Not only does she slap Don John across the face at her wedding, this Hero comes within an inch of not taking Claudio back once she is proven innocent (One of these days, a production of MUCH ADO will figure out a way to truly pull that off).

As solid as they both are, our warring duo takes a while to warm up to each other. Early on, when she’s not singing (and sometimes when she is), Espinosa’s supposedly “merry” Beatrice comes across as seriously pissed off, and particularly at Benedick who, in Sessions’ performance tracks as more of a genial goofball than a swaggering, know it all bachelor. By the time they succumb to the ruse and figure out that, uh huh, it’s better to make love not war, there’s some nice heat generated between the two actors.

After which, cue the music, and it’s party time all over again. Although truthfully, with all this color, brio and fizz, the revelry never really stops. Which makes for much enjoyment.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING continues in San Diego’s Balboa Park through August 30

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