Review: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at PCPA: Marian Theater

PCPA’s “Much Ado About Nothing” is a briskly paced, clearly rendered vision of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, chock full of ingenuity and wit.

The show brings the audience into its setting--the serene Sicilian village of Messina after the Second World War. There, Don Pedro (Cordell Cole), his soldiers, and courtiers, bright with victory, arrive at the estate of Signior Leonato (Don Stewart) for an extended stay. The festive mood of the soldiers imbues the production with a post-war vibrancy that complements the dreamy-looking set. Amid the adobe archways, beige tones, and cobblestones of the piazza, director Andrew Philpot places romance front and center. 

The course of true love does not, indeed, run smooth. For one, the central love pairing of Beatrice and Benedict (Emily Trask and George Walker) despise one another. There’s a brief allusion to a previous beef between the two, though we never learn more about it. Both forswear courtship. She holds tight to her maidenly freedoms and Benedict asserts that love is cringey. He’d rather be an “oyster” than in love. As Benedict and Beatrice, actors Walker and Trask animate their characters with charm and wit. And somehow the more they insult each other, the less convincing their mutual loathing appears. Beneath the barbs of wit, their attraction simmers. 

Their friends trick the reluctant pair with an elaborate ruse that transforms their animosity for one another into adoration. These changes of heart unfold in back-to-back eavesdropping scenes, an evergreen set piece of “Much Ado About Nothing.” Director Philpot amplifies the farcical elements of the scene with stage imagery involving landscaping, disguise, and acrobatics. It had the audience in stitches.

The second major plot involves a love affair between Claudio (Michael Gould) and Hero (Lily Cameron) which starts with ease and lightness and then takes an unexpected turn into tragedy. The self-described villain, Don John (Victor Meneses), “bastard” brother to Don Pedro, concocts a scheme to trick Claudio into believing his beloved Hero has betrayed him. Claudio humiliates Hero who appears to die. Many productions struggle to keep the audience emotionally invested after this dramatic mood shift.

In this staging, however, Philpot keeps the audience emotionally hooked. As Antonia, Leonato’s sister and Hero’s aunt, Kitty Balay delivers an impassioned invective against Claudio for his perfidy just when the story requires a sense of justice to satisfy our distaste for him. In Shakespeare’s playscript, the character of Antonia is listed as though he is an afterthought as “Leonato’s brother.” Yet she commands one of the most powerful moments of the performance, righteously destroying Claudio’s self-satisfied sanctimony and pride. 

Some of the show’s best comedy emerges from the minor characters who portray the night watch that keeps the civil order. Its members chance upon Don John’s co-conspirator Borachio (Gideon Feinstein) bragging about having fabricated an elaborate deceit to destroy Hero’s reputation. Good news, except that their leader Dogberry (the incomparable Erik Stein) seems too incompetent to successfully arrest anyone. Stein’s riveting physical comedy mixes well with Dogberry’s famous malapropisms which come at us like little gifts (i.e., “Comparisons are odorous”).