Review: 'Much Ado About Nothing' at the Gamm

The Gamm’s current production of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing kicks off the theater’s 25th year and is the first of two of the Bard’s plays The Gamm will produce (in true repertory) this season.  Director Fred Sullivan and the cast set their own bar extraordinarily high with this laugh out loud production.

Sullivan keeps the play set in Italy, during the late 1500’s while enveloping the production in just Post-World War II imagery.  The War has ended, the boys are coming home.

When Claudio returns to his village of Messina, his adult attraction to his childhood friend Hero , is re-kindled.  The attraction is mutual and the two are betrothed.  Love is in the air and inspires the couple to join with Don Pedro to manipulate their friends Beatrice and Benedick to move the needle on the pithy, bitchy and witty love/hate relationship they share.

Of course, there is  no story with no conflict.

Don John, Don Pedro's illegitimate brother, cannot bear to see his brother, who he feels has had every advantage and every happiness, continue on the road to matrimonial bliss.  Don John  concocts a scheme with his hanger on/friend Borachio to make Claudio think he sees Borachio successfully bedding Hero on the night before the wedding.

The next day, Claudio, believing that his fiancé has been untrue, waits until the moment of ‘I do’ to publicly humiliate Hero, calling her all manner of unspeakable things and refusing to marry her.  Hero faints dead away from the shock of the brutal and public shaming.

Don John and Borachio’s treachery is, fortunately witnessed by the local neighborhood watch; a group of well-meaning, but apparently witless volunteers.  The group, lead by the bumbling Dogberry, dramatically arrest the knaves and wrest a confession from them and alert Don Pedro and Hero’s father, Leonato of Don John’s treachery.  The young lovers are reunited and Beatrice and Benedick follow suit.

As director, Fred Sullivan’s comedy fingerprints are all over this production and the production is better for it.

As an audience member watching Shakespeare, I can become distracted with the ‘words’, trying to decipher Old World colloquialisms.  This often distracts me from the plot or performance.  Sullivan has figured out how to seemingly ‘close-caption’ the performance; translating the words, through movement, into situation comedy with drama and action that are effortless to absorb.  The triumph of this translation is invisible to the audience who simply gets to sit back and enjoy the production.

Marc Dante Mancini infuses Claudio with a wide-eyed naiveté that makes the character’s venomous tirade against Hero at the altar a real shock to the system.  Amanda Ruggiero’s primary responsibility is to convince the audience that Hero is pure, virtuous and deserving of Claudio’s affection.  She does a fine job.

Jeanine Kane and Tony Estrella know their way around this material and as Beatrice and Benedick they verbally spar like professional boxers in the ring.  The actors’ chemistry is time-tested and has a genuine quality.

Sam Babbit and Steve Kidd breeze through their respective roles with weight and authority.

Tom Gleadow’s smaller role as Dogberry is a true delight.  Funny and overflowing with physical comedy,  Sullivan and Gleadow have made this minor character a major source of humor.

Another fine example of Sullivan finding or creating humor is in this tiny scene:
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Act Two -  Scene Three: Leonato’s orchard.

Enter Benedick

Benedick:  Boy!

Enter Boy

Boy:  Signior?

Benedick:  In my chamber-window lies a book: bring it hither to me in the orchard.

Boy:  I am here already, sir.

Benedick:  I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again.

Exit Boy
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Reading that scene, I see only a touch of wry humor that can be accessed, but with a little bit of re-working and a deft hand, Sullivan creates a memorable and humorous vignette. 

In this production, the boy (the actor is unaccredited, unfortunately) enters first and delicately sets up a romantic orchard picnic for one.  He carefully spreads out the blanket, then gently removes the china, silver and linen from his wicker basket, vocalizing self-satisfied sighs with each move.  Completing the mood is a single candlestick and a silver picture frame with he kisses with chaste affection. (In my imagination the frame holds a photo of Tyrone Powers, cut from a fan magazine.) Only after all of that is complete does Benedick enter and ruin the boy’s quiet afternoon.

I don’t recall when I have seen a funnier production of a Shakespeare comedy. This production is a brilliant beginning to our local theater season.

Much Ado About Nothing runs through October 4, 2009, then again in repertory with Romeo and Juliet from November 18-29.  Tickets range from $24-$40 and can be purchased by calling 401-723-4266 or online at www.gammtheatre.org

Photo:  Tony Estrella as Dominick and Jeanine Kane as Beatrice. 
Photo by Peter Goldberg.  Courtesy of The Gamm Theatre.

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