Featured Image : Ted Crosby as Benedick and Emma Wright as Beatrice. Above : Matthew Raven as Claudio and Johann Silva as Don Pedro. Photo credit : Grant Fraser.
“Man is a giddy thing” intones one of this play’s protagonists at its conclusion. Here Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes keenly depicts man to be proud, commitment-phobic, sexist, blinded by rank and easily led by villainy.
This is a microcosm of theatrical device, character types and action similar to many of his comedies and tragedies alike. The chance to flex the craft of this Genesian Theatre’s cast and production team is seized upon by director Deborah Mulhall, with the help of Assistant Director Mark G Nagle to create an accessible and entertaining event.
Mulhall’s multi-use set is warmly lit and effectively transforms one side of the Genesian Theatre proscenium into a well-placed balcony. The windows, lattices, curtained entrance and outsides and the rear of the stage allow for plenty of sites with which to conduct the gossip, planned overhearing and banter which is required of this tale of love as requited, unrequited, resisted and destroyed.
From the outset dripping in music and mirth the well-costumed cast bring energy and a comfortable rendering of the script via varied accents. Clever contrasts in shape, colour and texture between the female attire and the intimidating garb of the officers contribute to the tensions for the opposing sexes to come.
The characters of Beatrice (Emma Wright) and sailor Benedick (Ted Crosby) emerge from the excited ensemble with fantastic chemistry. This is thankfully matched by some of the most lucid, facile and measured text delivery on the stage.
As the play progresses and savagery is exposed all about them, Wright and Crosby smoothly update to a pair genuinely in love and not merely rivals in wit. They struggle to support each other amidst the storyline of villainy tempting the deceived officer Claudio (Matthew Raven) to wrong his beloved. Raven’s character development and delivery through the course of the play impressively shows a ranked sailor’s gallant but dowry-hungry flirtation turn into cruel ferocity.
Spoilers and further details aside, suffice it to say that Shakespeare creates a tangled mess in the play. Its soap opera-like trajectory couldn’t succeed or attract our modern sensibilities without the continued good sense of timing and effective reactions from the ensemble as can be seen in this production.
Duplicity, villainy and unrest are moments which here make use of entrances and exits through the audience. More interaction with the audience ensues as the comic neighbourly Dogberry and Verges lighten the atmosphere as they catch the villains. There is no delay in entrances and clear action from all over this intimate Genesian ‘Globe’.
Paul Barbary’s Dogberry is expressive genius. It adds a stellar comic layer to the remainder of the earnest and entertaining storytelling. He is well supported by Tracey Okeby Lucan as Verges in these episodes. As the young bride-to be Hero, Catherine Lewis is a believably terrified yet resigned maid selected by a sailor and offered up by her father, dowry in tow. She is a well-cast foil to the brave witty fireworks of Emma Wright’s Beatrice.
As women are treated badly, vengeful anger is no better delivered than by Sally Lewis’ Antonia. This graceful and statuesque mother of Hero descends like a hawk upon the duped Claudio and pursues him about the stage after he has wronged her daughter. In a terrible transformation which doesn’t really reverse, her hunting of Claudio’s masculine pride warns men everywhere.
This production has much to delight a modern audience by way of well-drawn characters and their contrasts. The switches from humour to drama are not overdone in their extremes. Some solo a capella singing does not succeed as much as other accompanied or group song, but lyrics are always clearly delivered.
This Genesian Theatre version refreshes a Shakespearean classic for our modern palettes. It often has moments which are, by anyone’s troth, of the purely LOL type. This entertaining production points a finger at damaging behaviours and affectations which are still relevant to the global world today.
A joyous period dance ends this fluid, savagely bittersweet and finely peopled world. Much Ado About Nothing plays at the Genesian Theatre until Feb 25.