{"id":287,"date":"2006-09-14T13:51:53","date_gmt":"2006-09-14T17:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/09\/14\/review-much-ado-about-nothing-by-william-shakespeare\/"},"modified":"2006-09-15T19:45:36","modified_gmt":"2006-09-15T23:45:36","slug":"review-much-ado-about-nothing-by-william-shakespeare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2006\/09\/14\/review-much-ado-about-nothing-by-william-shakespeare\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Stratford Festival of Canada presents<\/p>\n

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
\nby William Shakespeare\n<\/p>\n

The CAST<\/strong><\/p>\n

LEONATO\u2019S HOUSEHOLD
\nLeonato GARY REINEKE
\nAntonio PAUL SOLES
\nHero ADRIENNE GOULD
\nBeatrice LUCY PEACOCK
\nMargaret NICOL\u00c1 CORREIA-DAMUDE
\nUrsula DIANE D\u2019AQUILA
\nServants SEAN BAEK BCC, ALISON DEON,
\nJONATHAN GOULD, BRIAN HAMMAN,
\nKEIRA LOUGHRAN,
\nANDREW MASSINGHAM,
\nSHAUN McCOMB, SANJAY TALWAR<\/p>\n

THE SOLDIERS
\nDon Pedro SHANE CARTY
\nDon John WAYNE BEST
\nSignor Benedick PETER DONALDSON
\nSignor Claudio JEFFREY WETSCH
\nBalthasar JACOB JAMES
\nSoldiers BRIAN HAMMAN, ANDREW MASSINGHAM,
\nSANJAY TALWAR<\/p>\n

\n

TOWNSPEOPLE OF MESSINA
\nDogberry ROBERT PERSICHINI
\nVerges BERNARD HOPKINS
\nConrade ROBERT KING
\nBorachio THOM MARRIOTT
\nFriar Francis IAN DEAKIN
\nSexton DON CARRIER
\nWatch SEAN BAEK, JONATHAN GOULD,
\nBRIAN HAMMAN, ANDREW MASSINGHAM,
\nSHAUN McCOMB, SANJAY TALWAR
\nMusicians EUGENE LASKIEWICZ (Accordion),
\nTERRY McKENNA (Guitar), PHILIP SEGUIN
\n(Cornet, Trumpet), HENRY ZIELINSKI (Violin)<\/p>\n

UNDERSTUDIES
\nSEAN BAEK (Conrade), DON CARRIER (Don John, Friar),
\nNICOL\u00c1 CORREIA\u2013DAMUDE (Hero),
\nIDAN deSALAIZ (Watch, Servants, Soldiers), IAN DEAKIN (Benedick),
\nALISON DEON (Margaret),
\nMICHELLE FISK (standby for Beatrice), JONATHAN GOULD (Balthasar),
\nBRIAN HAMMAN (Claudio),
\nJACOB JAMES (Verges), ROBERT KING (Leonato), KEIRA LOUGHRAN (Ursula), THOM MARRIOTT (Don Pedro), ANDREW MASSINGHAM (Antonio, Dogberry), SHAUN McCOMB (Sexton),
\nSANJAY TALWAR (Borachio)
\nPlace: Messina, Italy
\nTime: 1910<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Another tour de force for Peter Donaldson, with some strong supporting performances by Robert Perschini as Dogberry, Bernard Hopkins as Verges, Nicola Correia-Damaude as Margaret, Diane D’Aquila as Ursula and Gary Reineke as Leonato.<\/p>\n

I did not mention Lucy Peacock as Beatrice: I found her too shrill and disagreeable; there is a fine line to be tread in this character, and Peacock overstepped the bounds of disagreeability: she gave Donaldson a tough woman to fall in love with, and more is the power for him for making the Herculean task seem plausible. While I am on the subject of Beatrice, I cannot understand how she caught the cold that surfaces briefly after the garden scene. I have seen several other versions of the play in which she is caught in watering activities in the garden as she lurks to overhear the ladies’ gossip about Benedick’s passion, but in this production, she is given no cause. It is as if the director gave the play too little thought, as if we all know it, so why waste time on trivialities; the play will explain itself.<\/p>\n

Donaldson at first seemed too old for Benedick, and it took a while for me to grow accustomed to his portrayal; yet, I was soon buying him as the convert to love. I think he is the strongest Benedick of the several I have seen, and I have seen some fine Benedicks. He possesses a plausibility onstage that infuses the character.<\/p>\n

Persichini’s Dogberry was remarkable: he made the character into a true original. First, his costume gave him a remarkable tool, as it was a huge dark green (I think) suit, quite unlike the watch costumes. His deliberate pace allowed the malapropisms in his lines to sink in, even as the audience laughed over many of them. His body posturings again, slow and deliberate created the concept that the great obtuse mechanism that was Dogberry’s brain (lodged somewhere behind his heavily furred brows) was fairly clogged with indecipherable information that just had to find its way into his mouth and out into the air, where it would puzzle us as much as it seemed to soothe him. The lovely thing is that it was here in the tangled warrens of his brain that the truth of the play reposed (struggled?) Hopkins’ Verges was a wonderful little munchkin in contrast to the hulking Dogberry, and his costume with its earflaps and greatcoat was a classic.
\nIn the same ilk, D’Aquila presented us with a textured Ursula, complete with ideosyncratic ticks and twitches, much more interesting than Hero, the engenue, which is a part that is hopelessly mired in limitations imposed by the script. Correia-Damude, on the other hand, presented us with a sensuous and lovely Margaret, a contrasting character who was likeable in a way that made her acceptable as an innocent in the sabotage plot, in a way that modern audiences would have difficulty accepting, if you consider that she was a willing accomplice in John’s foul scheme to discredit Hero.
\nReinke’s Don Leonato, the character around whose morality the entire play pivots was another rich depiction by an actor with a Lear-like quality.<\/p>\n

The script provides many interesting challenges, from the Othello-like Hero-Claudio plot, (which I think is more plausible in this hokey setting than in Othello <\/em>itself), to the contrasting Dogberry-watch plot, to the featured Beatrice-Benedick intrigue. Aside from my disappointment with Beatrice, I really enjoyed this production \u2014 and that in spite of the fact that I was enduring a very sore throat from an oncoming cold, which should make me sympathize with Beatrice, but does not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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