much ado about nothing
the stratford festival
the national post

There seems to be a rule, one more stringent than for any other Shakespeare play, that productions of Much Ado About Nothing may be set in any historical period other than the one in which it was written. The new Stratford version is set -- or rather costumed, since the stage itself is, for the most part, timelessly bare -- in 1910. That's unusually precise, but I know it's true because the program tells me so. Left to myself, I'd never have worked it out, but that's because I have no dress sense. "Edwardian" is about as close as I'd have got, and I can't even guarantee that.

So much for when. The next question is why. My first guess was that we're running out of periods for Much Ado and that this one hadn't been used yet. My second had to do with the presence in the play of soldiers, soldiers ostensibly from Spain but billeted in Italy, who treat war as something of a joke -- a joke that, only four years later, would have died beyond hope of resuscitation. And my third had to do with the character of Beatrice, the play's heroine, whom Lucy Peacock plays, very effectively, as a refugee from Bloomsbury with a talent -- or at least a taste -- for watercolouring. This immediately sets her apart as a commentator and observer, possibly a caustic one; it also enables Peter Donaldson as Benedick, her sparring-partner and destined mate, to get even further into her bad graces by absent-mindedly defacing one of her canvases. Tellingly, he isn't just embarrassed by this; he's terrified.

Seeing him manoeuvred into her favour, and seeing her welcome him there, are this production's chief pleasures, as they are the play's. Donaldson and Peacock play beautifully together. He is a bluff barker of a misogynist; Benedick says with an appealing mixture of pride and shame that he was "not born under a rhyming planet," and indeed he speaks barely a line of verse in the entire play. His medium is lightly cynical prose, arias often with a casual, self-deflating sting in their tail. Donaldson times these throwaways to perfection; the show has something in common with this season's Henry IV in that both can make us laugh anew at passages that were always meant to be funny but usually aren't.

Beatrice has an equivalent, and more celebrated, line about her natal planet: "A star danced and under that was I born." Peacock interprets it as a shaft of light in a surround of melancholy. That isn't especially original -- in fact, it's how it's generally done - - but she does it very well. Benedick says, more than half admiringly, that Beatrice is "possessed with a fury," and her love here is a refuge from anger. It's fitting that the two should come together when her fury burns hottest: when she has seen her young cousin Hero rejected at the altar by her betrothed, Claudio, and his friends. This whole church scene has been staged with unusual economy, and exceptionally well, and its aftermath finds Beatrice incensed at Claudio, at men in general and at Benedick, until he consents to share his anger. Which he does, giving himself power and dignity. She, in turn, comes to share his laughter, which was always there anyway. It's very satisfying. Shakespeare probably envisioned the couple as younger than this (though older than the innocent Hero and the callow Claudio,) but casting them mature is a good modern habit. You get actors with the wisdom and technique to carry the play off.

This production was originally directed by Stephen Ouimette; when he fell ill at the dress rehearsal stage it was taken over by Marti Maraden. Whoever did what, the result is one of the least showy -- but most entertaining and humane -- of recent Stratford Shakespeares. The plotters who engineer Benedick and Beatrice into discovering their love are suavely led by Shane Carty's Don Pedro, who also deals very tactfully with his encounter with the sad, funny old men (Gary Reineke and Paul Soles) whom he has temporarily robbed of a niece and daughter. The schemers, without even good intentions to recommend them, are captained by Wayne Best's Don John, whose opening stab at politeness makes the entire household visibly uncomfortable. Thom Marriott as the minor villain Borachio makes, especially in repentance, an indelible impression -- as this actor always does. Or nearly always; he's in the cast of London Assurance, but I didn't realize it until he turned up at the curtain-call.

Robert Persichini doesn't get much mileage out of Dogberry's malapropisms, but he succeeds -- with invaluable assistance from Bernard Hopkins as his partner Verges -- in the more important task of establishing the constable's unshakable complacency and making it endearing. My last bouquet goes to Jacob James, whose singing of ‘Sigh No More, Ladies’ is magical.