Much Ado About Nothing - UMD Theatre
Much Hilarity in UMD Theatre’s Much Ado
Paul Brissett
Duluth News Tribune
April 24, 2009
The only possible quibble with UMD Theatre’s production of Much Ado About Nothing — and those who’ve never seen the Kenneth Branagh-Emma Thompson film version are denied even this — is that Dogberry’s scenes are no longer the comic highlight of the show.
That and Don Pedro’s hair.
Director Tom Isbell’s choice to have William Shakespeare’s first romantic comedy played as broadly as possible raised the hilarity level of the entire show to that of Michael Keaton’s turn as the constable, Dogberry, in the film.
The show, which opened Thursday, features Serena Brook as Beatrice and Nick Violante as Benedick, two people renowned for their “merry” dispositions and determination to remain single and who, indeed, have long waged a “merry war,” with each encounter “a skirmish of wit.”
It’s a delight to see Brook in a romantic role after several seasons of playing nerds, geeks and sanctimonious old ladies, though always with the spunk that also serves Beatrice so well.
Brook and Violante wield Shakespeare’s trademark verbal foils with a glee and deftness that turns each encounter into a veritable dance, its intensity making it clear to everyone but themselves how much in love they are.
But neither needs the other to command the stage. Each has a delightful scene in which he or she is “allowed” to overhear friends discussing how much the other loves him or her, and how sad it is that it’s unrequited. Their efforts to remain undiscovered as they’re jolted by these disclosures verge on slapstick.
Brook and Violante are only the most prominent players in a strong cast, which includes Allen Voight as Leonato and Caitlin Losure as Dogberry.
Losure puts her own mark on the role with the benefit to the audience of the ludicrous lines Shakespeare composed for the character being fully and funnily intelligible. Keaton’s delivery was anything but. Losure’s Dogberry is also hyperkinetic, never moving but by leaps or prances, arms flailing, and almost contortionist, with her back-wrenching bows. Her emphatically female constable also literally climbs on any male within reach, regardless of rank, age or degree of mental defect.
Curtis Phillips’ wedding-cake set is ideal for a light-hearted love story, with its sweeping, curved ramp, tiered circular platform and long diaphanous drape, all in gleaming white. It’s especially spectacular during a masked ball scene in Act I, when all the actors are clothed in sparkling white-hooded capes and glittering half-masks with each sporting a single, tiny blue light.
The ball costumes are costumer and makeup designer Patricia Dennis’ crowning achievement in the production.
At the other end of the spectrum for Dennis is Don Pedro’s hair — a Breck Girl-style wig that had actor Brian Kess constantly pushing it nervously back from his face in a very unsoldierly tic.