MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
In High Park, Toronto, Ont.
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Liza Balkan
Set by Joanna Yu
Costumes by Anna Treusch
Lighting by Rebecca Picherak
Composed and sound by Richard Feren
Choreography by Monica Dottor
Cast: Emma Ferreira
Can Kömleksiz
Richard Lam
Allan Louis
Nora McLellan
Christopher Morris
Natasha Mumba
Rose Napoli
Jamie Robinson
Heath V. Salazar
Helen Taylor
Emilio Vieira
Charming, bright, smart, wonderfully acted and directed in enchanting surroundings, but boy were most of the men in the play dumb. Not Benedick, he was a sweetie and wise, but the rest of them, Oy!
The Story. Beatrice and Benedick have a prickly relationship. They were a couple years before but he dumped her and she’s still smarting. She never misses a chance to throw a smarmy remark his way and he returns it. They of course are made for each other but how to make them realize it? Another plot line is the love of Claudio for Hero and she him. He wants to marry her but is easily duped by the dastardly Don John into thinking Hero is untrue. Oh Lord, what fools these men are! But I digress.
The Production. It’s the 36th year of Canadian Stage doing Shakespeare in High Park. Canadian Stage is collaborating with the Department of Theatre, School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design at York University.
The two directors, Liza Balkan for Much Ado About Nothing and Severn Thompson for Measure for Measure, are respected actors transitioning to directing and took the Director’s MA Program at York. After they finish the program, they each direct a Shakespeare in High Park. Both women have been directing elsewhere, but the York training takes them to another level.
The main structure of the set is multi-leveled with walkways off here and there. Joanna Yu’s set is festooned with colourful streamers and other notes of celebration. The army is returning from battle.
Much Ado About Nothing is directed by Liza Balkan who is gifted in realizing the great humour in the play as well as the pathos and the anger. For Much Ado About Nothing Liza Balkan has the cast engage the audience with respect but it’s not all played only to the audience. Characters interact with each other as well. There is nothing phony about playing to each other and the attentive crowd. The production is lively, energetic and wonderfully funny.
Initially Rose Napoli, who plays Beatrice, appears on stage in rustic top and jean shorts and does about 10 minutes of stand-up it seems and discourses on women, politics, men, gender issues etc. She’s abrasive, funny, powerful and takes no prisoners. When the play proper starts she has a good handle on the language and the feisty personality of Beatrice. Liza Balkan has directed Napoli to always be on the move, flitting energetically here and there. Beatrice loves sparing with Benedick played with bemused good humour and a bit of warranted confusion by Jamie Robinson. He is less energetic than Beatrice. He’s more tempered, cautious, but still with lots of confidence. And when they realize they love each other she doesn’t need to flit so fast and so often. Lovely transformation.
Emma Ferreira plays Hero as a gentle, loving soul. She shows lots of backbone when she ‘reappears’ as ‘another Hero.’ She is firm, confident and stands her ground with Claudio who is repentant. Allan Louis as Leonato is courtly, gracious, but hot-headed when he thinks his daughter has been untrue—not maligned, but untrue. OY.
Christopher Morris is a gracious Don Peter and a calming presence. Natasha Mumba is a wonderfully oily, creepy Don John unapologetic and angry at the world. Emilio Vieira does a lovely turn as Claudio, easily influenced, quick to judge and just as quick to realize he’s wrong. You just wish that the character would learn a few things from his mistakes….but that’s men, eh? (ooops, sorry, digressing again). Nora McLellan plays Dogberry dressed as a scout master it seems—khaki shorts and shirt tucked in and a wide hat. She has all the wonderful officiousness of a man with a little power and a wonderful set of malapropisms. McLellan is very serious and therefore very funny.
There are wonderful dances during the production and at the end choreographed by the gifted Monica Dottor. Loved this production.
The cast of 12 play in rep with Measure for Measure.
Comment. Lord what fools these men be, with apologies to Shakespeare. Claudio is told by the shifty Don John that Don Peter (head of the regiment in which Benedick and Claudio were a part) was wooing Hero for himself and not Claudio. And Claudio believed him and was in a rage. When the truth came out, Claudio calmed down and proposed to Hero and she readily accepted (oh dear!).
Then Claudio is told by the dastardly Don John that Hero is unfaithful and he can prove it by showing Claudio that Hero is seen talking to a man at her window at midnight the night before the wedding. Don Peter was there too as a witness. Claudio then brings this up at the wedding, just before he is to accept Hero. He humiliates her in front of everyone. He doesn’t talk to her in private to get her side of the story. (I guess if he did ask her side she would tell him that it wasn’t her at the window and could he really see that well since IT WAS MIDNIGHT AND DARK!!!). And Hero’s father, Leonato also takes Claudio’s side and further humiliates his daughter in public. Only Benedick is thoughtful and reasons out various sides of the story.
The truth outs, but boy is it painful to women. And Hero marries Claudio in the end when he is contrite for a few seconds. I fear for that marriage.
The natural setting in the park, surrounded by trees with the terraced hill where the audience sits and eats their picnics, is magical. Sure planes fly overhead, dogs bark, kids playing elsewhere are loud, but when the show starts, nothing matters. The audience is silent. I note some people can’t help recording the show on their devices. Attentive ushers quietly scurry down the aisle to get the attention of the person, and in a smiling sign language of hands making a box and a shake of a head, the person puts the device away.
Presented by Canadian Stage
Began. July 4, 2019.
Closes: Sept. 1, 2019.
Running Time: 1 hour, 45 minutes, no intermission.
Measure for Measure.
High Park, Toronto, Ont.
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Severn Thompson
Set by Joanna Yu
Costumes by Michelle Bohn
Lighting by Rebecca Picherak
Composed and sound by Richard Feren
Choreography by Monica Dottor
Cast: Emma Ferreira
Can Kömleksiz
Richard Lam
Allan Louis
Nora McLellan
Christopher Morris
Natasha Mumba
Rose Napoli
Jamie Robinson
Heath V. Salazar
Helen Taylor
Emilio Vieira
A terrific production, both directed and acted, of a woman trying to survive quietly in a world full of men with power who want to compromise her.
The Story. It’s Vienna and morals are going to hell in a hand basket. Duke Vincentio has allowed this to happen and doesn’t want to come down on the people with stringent laws to get things back on the right track because then they won’t like him. So he says he’s leaving the city and is putting Angelo, his second in command in charge. Except the Duke doesn’t leave but disguises himself as a priest so he can see how things are going in the city.
Angelo is a by-the-book man. As lax as Duke Vincentio was about the law, that is how stringent and blinkered Angelo is. He is unmovable when it comes to the law. So he resurrects a law that says if a man gets a woman not his wife pregnant, he must die. (a bit harsh, that.) A man named Claudio got his fiancé pregnant. Angelo condemns him to death. Claudio’s sister Isabella is about to become a nun and is urged to go to Angelo to plead her brother’s case. She is so eloquent that she charms Angelo but he doesn’t budge. However he asks her to come back the next day. She does and Angelo suggests that he will save her brother if she sleeps with him. Let us all gulp in unison. She tells this to Claudio who is horrified. But then….he reasons that the sacrifice of her chastity is less than him losing his life. I love her line: “More than our brother is our chastity.” The play is full of moral dilemmas.
The Production. It’s wonderful. Severn Thompson directs this with such confidence in bringing out those moments that make you gulp. There is a lot of humour, especially with a character named Lucio (a randy, sly Emilio Vieira) who is a shady character and is at home in the seamier side of Vienna.
Isabella is played by Natasha Mumba with conviction, pride and a sense of dread when she has to consider what Antonio wants from her. That wonderful line: “More than our brother is our chastity” was cut and I missed it because it says so much about Isabella and her hard convictions. She is preparing to be a nun. She is a woman. Who are we to condemn her convictions? But Mumba is so fearless and convincing in conveying Isabella’s convictions and beliefs that I can deal with the cut.
Antonio is played by Christopher Morris as an arrogant, matter of fact man, who is clear and firm in his reasoning. He is not pure evil because Christopher Morris illuminates his own convictions. He is steely when he challenges Isabella when she says she will report him, and he says who will believe you? Angelo has the law on his side and also power over this strong woman. As the Duke Allan Louis is as shady as the others in the play but is more subtle. There is a lilting humour when he is in disguise as the priest. When the Duke reveals his own feelings for Isabella and takes her hand. When she hears his comments she immediately drops his hand. Such a resounding moment, in a production full of them.
Comment. Since the Duke knows what’s going on one can assume that Antonio gets his comeuppance. But this is Shakespeare. He’s not finished when Antonio is exposed. The Duke also is charmed by Isabella and makes her an offer too. The whole idea of men having the power even though women have brains and can try and stand up to them, is so clear in Shakespeare. What a brilliant writer. I wonder that because Shakespeare wrote with such authority about how men had such power over women and how smart women were in dealing with that overwhelming power, that perhaps Shakespeare was a woman.
But I digress.
Presented by Canadian Stage
Closes: Aug. 31, 2019.
Running Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes, no intermission.
www.canadianstage.com