Theatre Review: Much Ado About Nothing

SARASOTA – The FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training presented Shakespeare’s Comedy Much Ado About Nothing at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens on Wednesday night. It is performed outdoors in "the round“ in the middle of the Gardens, as the sun sets over the Sarasota Bay. This is an idyllic location for the Bard’s sophisticated tale of romance, villainy and humor.

This work is a classical comedy and believed to be Shakespeare’s most sophisticated one. As in some other great stories, soldiers return home from war to face the drama ahead of them. In this account, the soldier Claudio becomes enamored of the daughter of the host, Leonato, who welcomes him. But Don John has amorous plans of his own for Hero and thus plots to contaminate their love and to instigate its collapse.

Simultaneously, appears the longstanding verbal banter and acerbic wit between Benedik and Beatrice. They are confirmed bachelor and bachelorette, respectively, and the barbs take off with sparks flying. Their words are arrows, sailing through the night air. Who does not remember classmates in high school who would tease and insult each other, only to discover that their verbal torments masked an underlying devotion?

The actors and their portrayals in this production are funny, beautiful, bold, bawdy, and sexy with impeccable comic timing and exhibit the highest level of energy and intensity so necessary for physical comedy. This kind of comedy transcends words alone and is harder to master than just reciting lines.

The principals in this production shout, slither, hide, frown, laugh, jump, strip (not completely), dance and sing. All in good fun.

Comic actors from George Burns and Jack Benny to Bea Arthur and Roseann Barr, know very well that to get the laughs, timing is everything. But for physical comedy, movement is everything. A pie in the face will only get you so far. Lucy and Dick van Dyke knew how to do physical comedy. When not properly executed with the right intensity and focus, the delivery looks silly, not funny and any accompanying dialogue sounds awkward. In Much Ado the pranks are executed so well that Ethel and Lucy themselves would be proud.

In fact, Leonato (Lawrence James), Claudio (Scott Shomaker), Benedik (Dylan Crow), who takes a dunk in the fountain, and Beatrice (DeAna Wright), all appeared to have multiple Johnny Carson moments, particularly in act two, wherein they were so bemused by their lines and antics, that they serendipitously broke into laughter while delivering them. They clearly found joy in their characters. To make a pun of my own, they were playing while acting in the play. It would seem that spontaneous laughter requires some measure of truth. And it is that comic truth that Director Johnathan Epstein was able to elicit from these players. Directors know that they can shape a performance, and carve it like Michelangelo carved marble, but they cannot create the vitality that emerges from within.

To take this production over the top in today’s parlance, interwoven into the performance was recorded music from various genres and even an insertion of a little hip-hop. Other additions include Keystone cops, and a Southern "Boss Hogg“ portrayal of the Constable Dogberry (Erik Meixelsperger) and his deputies that playfully wove elements of Americana into their portrayals.

In a shocking time, when educators are noting that some students cannot read cursive writing, this rendition of Shakespeare comes alive with an appeal and a vitality to inspire and excite students of our language to seek more of the same. Shakespeare’s plays were targeted to everyone, and yes, the "groundlings“ would have loved. After all, Shakespeare’s works were meant to be seen and heard, not read silently from a book. English teachers take note!

Much Ado About Nothing runs through May 5 at the Mary Selby Botanical Gardens in downtown Sarasota. Visit the Asolo website for more information.