Much Ado About Nothing
By William Shakespeare. Directed by Diego Arciniegas. Set design by Janie Howland. Costumes by Gail Buckley. Sound by Stan Gurczak. With Robert Pemberton, Sarah Newhouse, Rollin Carlson, Stacy Fischer, Nathan Blew, William Church, Steve Barkhimer, Bill Salem, James Bodge, Stephanie Dorian, Helen McElwain, Nathaniel Scott, Diego Arciniegas, Gerardo Franklin, Nancy E. Carroll, and Stephen Falcone. At the Publick Theatre, Wednesday through Sunday through July 8.

Is there any theatergoer this side of grumpy George Bernard Shaw who doesn’t love Much Ado About Nothing? It’s two and a half hours of delayed gratification, since even the dullest spectator can figure out that the catfighting Beatrice and Benedick will be spooning by the end. Still, it hasn’t been a frequent visitor here recently. Perhaps Kenneth Branagh’s magnificent 1993 film has had an inhibiting effect. Or maybe it’s the play’s dark undercurrents. There’s bastard Don John — why shouldn’t he be at war with life? And Claudio’s easy-come, easy-go Hero worship (he seems most interested in her virginity and her fortune), which Shakespeare sets against the hard-won admissions of Beatrice and Benedick, asking us to consider which marriage is more likely to last.

One thing you can count on from the Publick Theatre’s Shakespeare is an imaginative set that will replicate the low-budget simplicity of Elizabethan theaters. This one, by Janie Howland, is a handsome two-level terra cotta affair with stairs on either side leading up to a balustraded landing/balcony; underneath, a series of Romanesque arches reveals benches, a panel painting of the Madonna, and French doors. The new Publick stage describes almost a semi-circle; here large squares of well-worn terra cotta and cream are encircled by a swath of real grass and embellished with a couple of potted firs and some ornamental ivy. Gail Buckley’s costumes — puffy white shirts, vests, doublets, long flowing dresses — inject period flavor without distracting.

New Publick artistic director Diego Arciniegas likewise entrusts himself to the Bard, cutting discreetly (the show runs two and a half hours with a 15-minute intermission) and eschewing concepts. He does achieve a novel effect by ending the first half just as the Watch accost Conrade and Borachio; when the house lights go back down, everyone resumes his place and the scene continues. Don Pedro’s proposal to Beatrice is offered in earnest and throws her into confusion; later, when he and Leonato and Claudio are gulling Benedick with praise of Beatrice, he’s not jesting when he says he would have married her — the remark occasions surprised and concerned looks from the other two. One could question the downbeat ending, however: the text calls for a general dance (Much Ado is the only Shakespeare play to conclude thus), but Arciniegas shifts the focus to Don Pedro’s dismay over the treachery of his bastard brother.

And I wasn’t completely captivated by Sarah Newhouse’s Beatrice. Fanny Kemble, Ellen Terry, Edith Evans, Judi Dench, and Emma Thompson are a hard act to follow, but I found Newhouse just a shade vinegary, an unhappy Beatrice who’s single not by choice but because she’s not in demand — this in a character who, like Benedick, needs to radiate confidence (however subliminally) in order to offset the little faith of Don Pedro and Claudio and Leonato. At times I wondered wistfully whether new Publick artistic associate Susanne Nitter (a fine Lady Macbeth/Lady Macduff at the Publick last summer) wouldn’t have been a better choice. Still, Newhouse has a winning smile when she flashes it — she just needs to be the wooer as well as the wit.

Rollin Carlson is a callow, not always comfortable Claudio, and Stacy Fischer is a shrill Hero when she shouts, which is often (these roles always seem the devil to play, perhaps because they’re by design shallow). But Robert Pemberton is a beguiling, Branagh-like Benedick who gets up close and personal with the audience and brings the house down when, having shaved off his beard to impress Beatrice, he tells his friends, “Gallants, I am not as I have been.” There’s also fine work from Nathan Blew as Don Pedro, Steve Barkhimer and Bill Salem as Leonato and Antonio, James Bodge as Friar Francis, Stephanie Dorian as Margaret, and Nancy E. Carroll as a refreshingly deadpan Dogberry. But the palm goes to William Church’s acerbic, Eeyore-gloomy Don John. I would wish him a bigger part except that Shakespeare, in his title, already wrote the book on sexual quibbling.

Issue Date: June 21-28, 2001