Ontario’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s glittering opening week for its 60th anniversary season had an appropriate diamond brilliance. Indeed, the whole season sparkles with the return of many famed alumni performing, directing, designing, or just appearing on panels or in ceremonies [like actor Colm Feore, tied up in the current TV blockbuster, “The Borgias,” or Dame Maggie Smith returning to receive an overdue Canadian honor].
The opening night marked the return of one of my favorite actors and directors, Christopher Newton, to direct a beautiful production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. After acting at Stratford in the 1960s, Newton founded Theatre Calgary, was artistic director of Vancouver Playhouse, and for 22 years, as artistic director, lead actor, director, and much else contributed more than anyone to make the Shaw Festival a great institution. He has received most of Canada’s top honors, and with good reason.
Obviously, I was disposed to favor this production, but I was hardly disappointed. I don’t actually like this popular Shakespearean comedy as much as most do. It does have the delicious banter between the witty lovers Beatrice and Benedict, and its almost-tragic romance between Claudio and the unjustly defamed Hero can be emotionally moving. But Shakespeare‘s heavy-handed, low-comedy fools in this play get particularly overdone and bore me. And the several interruptive songs usually read more poetically than they sound in anachronistic singing adaptations.
Newton here follows the recent Stratford trends led by directors Antoni Cimolino and Des McAnuff to move the costumes and décor forward in time and present the music in modern style. But, typically, his approach is more stylish and more like music hall than rock concert.
He sets the action in 19 th Century Brazil and its more elegant tradition of aristocratic dance music (sensually composed and arranged from Brazilian composers by Jonathan Munro and choreographed on the cast by Jane Johanson). So, followed by 42nd Street and You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, it began what looked like a season of musicals.
But casting master character actor James Blendick as the wronged Hero’s father Leonato lends unusual drama and dignity to the carrying-on over her being slandered; and tall, commanding Juan Chioran makes Don Pedro a reassuring noble presence instead of the usual pompous figure. Similarly, the underwritten role of the slanderous villain is played by Gareth Potter, more often a vital, likable figure onstage; so this villain is both more persuasive and less cardboard.
Tyrone Savage makes a touchingly heartbroken Claudio after he learns that he has been deceived about Bethany Jillard’s affecting wronged Hero. And Keith Dinicol very amusingly switches from confused to angry as Antonio.
Santo Loquasto’s stylistically authentic-looking but dramatically constantly changing designs are lighted with his usual subtlety by Robert Thomson. The only surprise in the beauty of Loquasto’s work is that he seems to produce it in several countries almost every week. Airlines must love him as much as artistic directors.
The stars of this play, of course, are the sparring lovers, Beatrice and Benedict. Newton has two wonderful actors, friends with whom he has worked notably before, to play them. Deborah Hay has been splendid in classic roles in tragedy, as well as singing/playing Eliza in My Fair Lady; and at Shaw Festival her Billy Dawn actually rivaled Judy Holiday’s.
In only a few years Ben Carlson has won awards for comedy, tragedy and most in-between categories, and was considered a world-ranking Hamlet in Chicago, Stratford, and elsewhere. The two are also a real-life, offstage couple, and obviously qualified to be the unforgettably pleasing stars that they are here.
