Director Timothy Douglas and company combine two of the best of all possible worldviews,  Elizabethan and Ethnic American - one old, the other new - in the Folger Theatre's imaginative restaging of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (to 11/29).  Reset - perhaps reloaded is the better term - in the Caribbean community of DC around the time of carnival, this fitting transposition allows the director to deliver the subtext whole, in one fell swoop.  The Caribbean enclave is a closed society back home or in the States, where everyone knows everyone else and his or her business.  Since this is a play on and about the secondary meaning of the "nothing," i.e., noting or observing, the actions of all will be reported, and more particularly misreported, by each of the self-interested characters.  And Carnival is the time for upsetting the social order, as pointed out by Mikhail Bakhtin, where inversion of the power structure is the order of the day. 

The production's Caribbean staging also lays bare the initiation rites of primitive or tribal cultures; as we will discover later in the play, there's a passage from youth to maturity that man and woman both must negotiate under the watchful eyes of their elders.  In the end, there is very much ado about knowing.  And what is a courtship if not an initiation ceremony?

Mr. Daniels's production is clear, well-paced, and cohesive.  A concerted effort was made to integrate movement and music into the text to tell the story at a tempo appropriate to the action.  The intimate space (seating 250) was used to maximal advantage.  This was no sprint to the finish line to get the show in under three hours (as you see with most of the Bard's 5-Acters): careful direction gets you there comfortably, with about a half an hour to spare. Combining characters here, pruning excessive dialog there, and clarifying some of Shakespeare's ponderous plotting throughout, this show is always snappy and energized to the point of being, hot, hot, hot!

You'll be familiar with the motif from time immemorial of the battling prospective lovers in this Ur-Screwball Comedy.  Shakespeare's Beatrice (Rachel Leslie) is the antithesis of Dante's - she's sharp-tongued, shrewish, and combative when it comes to the opposite sex.  Benedict (Howard W. Overshown) is a stand-up (as in comic) kind of suitor with a youngish Don Rickles demeanor.  Ms. Leslie gives a deft portrayal of Beatrice, consistently landing verbal jabs (this judge had her well ahead in the fight on points); while the talented and funny Mr. Overshown takes it like a man, right on his beardless chin.  Only the machinations of a scheming cast of characters will get this egocentric pair together.   

This time around (at least the fifth for me) I was struck by how much this is the story of Claudio (Alexis Camins) and Hero (Roxi Victorian), relegating the battling duo to subplot status.  It also feels like a transitional, mid-career play, in which residual and incipient themes - hearkening back to the past and coming to fruition in the great future tragedies - examine and work out the problems of betrayal, duplicity, internecine strife, and, yes, evil.   The penultimate dramatic scene, one of a false discovery, is the only cloud over this sunny sky, but it's a big one.

How we get there is largely determined by the position of the military (or law) men in this world: they are outsiders and oblivious to the social cues embedded in the structure. In the case of Claudio, he is further hampered by his innocence.  Dressed as a DC policeman, he doesn't have the gumption to ask for Hero's hand in marriage, so he solicits the aid of the Commish-attired Don Pedro (Jeffrey Scott) as a stand-in to pop the question - first to the approving lady, then to her father Leonato (Doug Brown) and his brother and music maker (Craig Wallace) who are very much in the know.  Mr. Camins gives his moonstruck and plodding character the required gullibility, doubting first himself and then his beloved.  Ms. Victorian plays a touchingly vulnerable Hero who is almost caught in a deceptive web of slander spun out by the stock villain, a wily trickster (and Bastard) named Don John (Joel David Santner).   Mr. Brown and Mr. Wallace - veteran Shakespearean actors - anchor the solid cast with assurance while Mr. Scott (who appeared as an understudy) is commendable as a ramrod straight prince of the city.  Mr. Santner offers an appealingly sinister contrast to his upright, almost dower stage brother.  Balancing the evil with the good is Friar Francis (played good-naturedly by Billy Finn) who comes decked out with a bright tropical shirt over his religious attire.

Archetypes are rounded out by an excellent pair of clowns - the self-important Dogberry (Alex Perez) and the less-than-sharpest blade Verges (Matt MacNelly) - and earth mothers Ursula (Aakhu TuahNera Freeman) and Margaret (Fatima Quander).  Mr. Perez is memorable as a malaprop-addled night cop and is nicely paired with the extremely supple Mr. MacNelly. Ms. Freeman embraces her role with complete acceptance as does Ms. Quander who plays a dim-witted accomplice in a gender-bending plot twist with Borachio portrayed with convincing treachery by Dionne Audain.                  

Scenic designer Tony Cisek's set features an exceedingly bright palette - matched in pizzaz by the wonderful costumes and masks of Helen Q. Huang - which looks authentic down to the 50s patio chairs, corrugated siding, motley banners, and island logos.  You'll never look at the Folger's stage pillars the same way again, tricked out as they are - one as a palm tree, the other a house beam bearing an assortment of Caribbean regalia. Matched by neighborhood sounds of Matthew M. Nielson, from sirens to shrieks, and a playlist tending more to reggae than steel pan, from Spinmon Craig Wallace, this world is brought into striking relief by lighting designer Dan Covey.  Choreographer Roxi Victorian takes time from her nuptials to deliver several evocative dance routines: once with the keening female foursome; another over the prostrate and grieving Claudio; and a concluding finale and shimmy up the aisles to rhythmic applause from the audience.

It's been a fight to finish for the merry cast, and for those out in front, what a ride.

Sound check: Low to moderate with some elevated sound levels at scene changes

Applause meter: Highly recommended, 4+ hands

Program notes: Excellent, with detailed director's notes, dramaturg's notes, and an article (excerpted) from the Folger edition of the play; they also have a great on-line presence

Runtine: 2 hours and 35 minutes with an intermission

Photo credits: Carol Pratt/Folger Theatre ©   

Copyright by John F. Glass November 9, 2009

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