By Adam Rafferty
As a treat for the festive season, Shakespeare’s ever popular romantic comedy Much Ado About Nothing is reliably a diverting treat and this new, compact interpretation by Director Mark Wilson puts a wacky and saucy swirl on top.
Cutting the cast back to a mere eight players, with all bar the two leads doubling in multiple roles, and having them play on an open stage, leaving the entirety of the wings and rear of the playing space exposed, makes for a bubblingly, busy production that is slightly more boggling, but perhaps equally more fun, as we see actors step into wildly different parts from one moment to the next.
At the centre of course, there’s the original ‘snarky soulmates’, leading characters Benedick and Beatrice, played here by Fayssal Bazzi and Alison Bell. The pair who are full of witty repartee and bicker-flirting that is always at the playful core of this particular classic. The battle of wits kicks off immediately as Benedick returns from war and Beatrice starts sassily disparaging his ability as a soldier. Bell has a wonderful way of delivering Beatrice’s roasting of Benedick that reveals her character’s true feelings and masked affection. Bazzi is surprisingly goofy, while also demonstrating Benedick’s fierce intelligence and sharp tongue, making him the perfect foil to Bell in their verbal duels.
Beatrice lives with her uncle Leonato (Syd Brisbane), Governor of Messina, whose grand estate is represented here by a two-story set designed by Anna Cordingley and modelled on the former home of erstwhile AFL footballer and television pest Sam Newman, famous for its façade that features an enormous blue duotone print of Pamela Anderson, likely taken in her Baywatch era. It’s a perplexing choice, for while Leonato isn’t a character who shows massive respect for the women in his life – you might even call him a bigot at times – it feels somewhat unwarranted to draw a comparison with outdated attention-seeker Newman, or to even bring thoughts of him to bear in this story. Nevertheless, the structure provides excellent levels through which the plays many moments of eavesdropping and misunderstandings can be played out.
Benedick’s friends, the Prince (John Shearman) – commonly known as Don Pedro – and Claudio (Remy Heremaia) join in him in Messina, where Leonato’s daughter Hero (Miela Anich) quickly becomes the object of Claudio’s affections. Heremaia and Anich make a picture-perfect couple and exude romance in their courtship and speedy step to engagement. Costume Designer Karine Larché has fun with spinning from quirky contemporary dress for the cast to classic Elizabethan skirts, breeches and ruffs when they attend the masquerade ball, where the Prince and Leonato go without hose. Hilariously, the Prince’s poolside speedos have a matching pattern to the flag flown at Messina and Shearman takes dramatic and comic advantage of all his flamboyant garb.
Wilson’s mischievous nature as a director is seeded throughout the show in many and varied ways. When the night watch gathers dressed in police uniform, they arrive to the theme tune of 90s TV cop drama Blue Heelers (shout out to Sound Designer Joe Paradise Lui). And when the Prince’s brother, the Bastard (Chanella Macri) – commonly known as Don John – arranges for his mate Borachio (also played by Anich) to be seen entering Hero’s bedchamber, the subsequent amorous “engagement” between Borachio and Hero’s servant Margaret (also played by Macri) is presented as an outrageous sexual mime. Anich, it must be noted, delivers a magnificently contrasting performance between Hero and Borachio that is fantastic to see transform in real-time on stage.
But the greatest scene-stealer is MTC and Shakespeare veteran Julie Forsyth who not only plays the servant Ursula, but constable Dogberry the head of the night watch, and the friar set to marry Claudio and Hero to boot. Forsyth is in and out of various costumes and characters all night, bringing deftly paced timing and superb physical comedy to each and every one.
With little in the way of ‘backstage’ space out of audience view, the crew assisting with costume changes and wind machines are often a distracting part of the action, and it’s hard not to have your attention drawn to cast getting changed and preparing for their next entrance in the ‘wings’ rather than the actual centre of attention in that moment. Perhaps it’s the intention, to create a kind of Shakespeare in the park kind of presentation where the nuts and bolts of the production on show are all part of the entertainment.
Just as Shakespeare’s story ends with a missive to set aside worries and rather dance and celebrate the night away, this production delivers the kind of happy ending that is the perfect capper to an evening and to the year of theatre from MTC alike.
Image: Gregory Lorenzutti
