Some productions of Shakespeare's comedies don't muster a single laugh-out-loud moment. The Everyman Theatre's current staging of Much Ado About Nothing, however, contains dozens. This is something of a pleasant surprise, since the Bard's script comes weighted with incongruous melodrama and a couple of almost unactable roles - which could easily have bogged down the company's first foray into Shakespeare. Fortunately, director Vincent Lancisi and his troupe don't leave their audience much time to worry over the fine points of the plot. What they present, instead, is a swiftly-moving gallery of sensitive characterizations and contained, hilarious sequences that, while not entirely mandated by the material, reveal the extent of comic invention that even Lancisi's faithful spin on the play allows.
Set in 17th-century Italy, this take on Much Ado About Nothing never tries to resonate with the way we live now. Lancisi's work is informed mainly by a spirit of escape and repose, which renders the war of the sexes at the heart of the script lively, flippant and ultimately harmless. Ultimately, the production works mainly as a showcase of comic technique. Though Lancisi and his actors inject little ambiguity into their alternately sublime and problematic material, they do present the script with a sense of spontaneous celebration that, paradoxically, is founded on a keen dramatic discipline.
When the play opens, the military forces under Don Pedro (Michael Kramer) have just arrived at the estate of Leonato (Carl Schurr) in Messina. With the end of war, Claudio (Matthew Schleigh), one of the lords in Don Pedro's company, is granted the hand of Leonato's daughter Hero (Megan Anderson) in marriage. Yet Don Pedro's brother, Don John (Jason Lott), in a bout of ill-justified villainy, engineers a ruse that would obliterate the relations between Hero and Claudio - and, in consequence, destroy Don Pedro's goodwill towards Leonato. All this unfolds amid masquerades and other set pieces, setting down tensions that only explode into the open during the play's second half.
However, the conflicts raging in the background make for more potent comedy. As Don John's plot is set in motion, Claudio's comrade in arms Benedick (Jim Jack) and Hero's cousin Beatrice (Deborah Hazlett) continue their long-lived mutual hatred. With the help of Don Pedro, the two young lovers contrive to lead their antagonistic friends into an improbable romance. In the meantime, responsibility for the estate's security has been left to the discombobulated Constable Dogberry (Wil Love) and his assistant Verges (Vivienne Shub), who eventually cross paths with Don John's henchmen and - as is common in Shakespearean comedies - countless other characters.
According to the director, presenting one of Shakespeare's plays requires a "small army of specialized artists." Much the same could be said of Lancisi's equally-lavish production of Ri-
-chard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal last winter - although the earlier show's loony, claustrophobic atmosphere is little like the ample environment that set designer Daniel Ettinger has organized for Much Ado About Nothing. His simple sliding panels of foliage never pull attention away from the actors, and serve as clever props for Benedick and Beatrice during one stretch of physical comedy.
But originality is seldom the Everyman rendition's strong suit. For one thing, shades of Kenneth Branagh's film - already a thematically balanced and immensely satisfying version of Shakespeare's play - crop up in Kathleen Geldart's costume design and Roberta Gasbarre's choreography.
The individual actors, particularly the sparring leads, are given much more room for invention. After delivering two incisive performances at Everyman earlier this year, Hazlett confidently moves between Beatrice's comic passages and moments of near-tragic emotion, while Jack offers a glib but likable turn - including some interaction with the audience.
Hero and Claudio are, like so many of Shakespeare's lovers, thrown about by events beyond their control. Anderson and Schleigh can't help investing their characters with a profound and potentially tragic innocence, but also achieve a few moments of genuine wit and mirth. Dogberry, in contrast, can and has been played using any of a number of personalities. In Love's hands, he outdoes Hamlet's Polonius for pompous prolixity, speaking even the most bizarre lines with dimwitted pride. Shub's Verges, who spends much of the action getting pushed about by her companion, is an unexpectedly hilarious foil - quiet, oblivious, absolutely wonderful.
Wonderful, but tangential. On occasion, this Much Ado About Nothing works too hard to expose the fundamental mechanics of its story - and, when it does so, it nearly malfunctions. While most of the cast's nicer dramatis personae wear white, Lott's brooding Don John and his hangers-on slink onto the stage decked out in pure black. Setting such clear sides and then clobbering an audience with such distinctions, usually does poor service to scripts as complex as Shakespeare's. Still, Lancisi's entire production takes place in a world that is at once radically simplified and fundamentally reassuring. And oddly enough, this seemingly idyllic and reductive treatment of Much Ado About Nothing is inhabited by characters who, beneath their mirth, remain incredibly nuanced.
Much Ado About Nothing will be on stage at the Everyman Theatre through Dec. 16. Call (410)-752-2208 or visit www.everymantheatre.org for more information.
