So Shakespeare. Much wow.

Hi friends. Happy Canada Day to the Canadian readers, 4th of July to the Americans, and Monday to the rest of you. Today I bring to you my review of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at the Stratford Festival.

Due to complete dumb luck, my husband and I ended up at the opening night performance of Much Ado. Opening nights are really fun – the excitement is palpable, and the audience is filled with a lot of people who know and love the cast. We got to walk along a (very short) red carpet to make it into the theatre, and it was cool seeing some of the actors from other shows in the lobby – including, one Emilio Vieira (friend of the blog/Stratford actor).

By chance, I ended up sitting beside Emilio in the front row. If you can picture it, we had one of those moments where we waved to each other as we walked down parallel aisles of the theatre, then walked toward the centre of the row, stopped in front of each other, looked down at our tickets, up at each other, down at our seats, and back at each other. It was wonderful.

I’d recommend everyone sit beside Emilio at every Stratford show they see in the future. For one, he has great insights, as he’s a Shakespeare aficionado. For another, he’s very nice. Perhaps most interestingly, though, he knows all of the actors on stage, as he’s a part of the Festival. And how often do you get to go to a show and sit beside an insider?

I’d never sat front row at the Festival Theatre (the main theatre) at Stratford before, and it’s definitely an experience in itself. The stage starts at ground-level and then there are a few tiers of stairs up, but for all intents and purposes, you’re effectively sitting at eye level to the stage and at an arms length away from the actors. Here’s a photo of the theatre from Stratford’s website to give you an idea:

The actors also enter and exit from tunnels within the audience (like in a stadium), so sitting by an aisle meant there were many opportunities for the actors to see us and interact with us. And when the actors personally know the person you’re sitting beside, they tend to interact a lot.

For example, at the top of the show, the actors walk onstage by dancing a little jig and singing a little tune. One of the actors made eye contact with Emilio and gave him this resigned look, like “oh, boy, it’s you.” Emilio later told me that this particular actor doesn’t enjoy dancing, so the look was indicative of that. But small moments like this kept happening throughout the performance.

You may have caught on by now that I’m skirting around giving actual critiques of the show. And you’d be correct. Unlike my husband (the child of lovable maniacs), I hadn’t seen 40+ Shakespeare productions by the age of 18. This review, therefore, comes from the perspective of someone who has seen a lot of theatre but isn’t a Shakespeare scholar by any means, so make of that what you will. But I can tell you that if I close my eyes and think of what a Shakespeare comedy looks like, this production is it.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot of Much Ado About Nothing, I’ll give you the SparkNotes’ version. The show revolves around two loves stories – Benedick & Beatrice and Claudio & Hero. Benedick is a self-declared eternal bachelor, and Beatrice is sort of a young spinster type. They exchange witty banter and are tricked into falling in love with each other. It’s quite sweet if not a tad predictable. Claudio, on the other hand, falls in love with Hero at first sight and immediately proposes, but then evil villain Don John (for no apparent reason) decides to convince him that Hero isn’t really a virgin (the horror!), so Claudio dramatically dumps Hero at the altar. She faints, everyone thinks she’s dead, but she’s not actually dead and is indeed still a virgin (huzzah!), so Claudio apologizes and they reconcile. It’s sort of silly and absurdist in only the way that Shakespeare comedies can be, but it’s certainly a lot of fun.

Unlike Stratford’s Richard II, Much Ado is a fairly traditional production:

• The costumes – about as traditional as they come while still being modernized to better suit today’s tastes.
• The stage – beautiful, simple yet ornate. There was a glorious tree at the back of stage right (if you’re facing the stage, that’s the left side). The tree branches wound their way up to a second-storey deck that was used as a balcony or interior in other scenes. The tree itself was climbable, and was used for a few comedic moments throughout the show.
• The text – mostly unchanged, but I’ll touch on one key addition in a bit.
• The acting – very strong. Let me elaborate:

Everyone in this cast very was very professional, polished, and sounded natural when speaking this old, poetic text. However, there were a few standout performers for me that I’d like to highlight:

• Graham Abbey as Benedick.
• Akosua Amo-Adem as Ursula.
• The duo of Allison Edwards-Crewe and Austin Eckert as Hero and Claudio, respectively.

[] and Graham were the stars of the show in terms of the meatiness of their roles and their comedic beats. They are clearly well-established actors, as, in my opinion, their performances were just a bit cleaner than the rest. They spoke eloquently and clearly, and their diction was perfect. However, their performances didn’t feel stuffy or boastful – they felt grounded in reality, if that makes sense. They were also absolutely hilarious, especially doing physical comedy bits. They had me in stitches, and I was laughing nearly as much as I did during Spamalot.

Akosua as Ursula was so. Damn. Funny. Ursula is a sort of friend/handmaiden/cousin (?) to Beatrice. Even if Akosua only had a line or two in a scene, she was able to take that line and make it the funniest moment of the scene. Her facial expressions, gestures, and small moments interacting with the audience were also delightful. One moment that sticks out to me is when Benedick asks her to go fetch a book, and she looks out to the audience and says, with equal parts judgment, disdain and astonishment, “he wants a book.” She was so funny that I unintentionally whispered to myself, “who is she?” and Emilio overheard and told me her name. Thanks, Emilio! I’ll definitely look out for her in future shows.

Allison and Austin as Hero and Claudio had a bit of a tougher sell in my opinion, because their love story is certainly more dated than Benedick/Beatrice. For one, Hero and Claudio have to (somewhat) convincingly fall in love immediately. Then, Claudio has to break up with Hero in a matter so dramatic that Hero (somewhat) convincingly faints/dies from the ordeal. But then Claudio has to be sufficiently remorseful that Hero takes him back, and we’re rooting for the couple to succeed. (Side note: I thought that it was an interesting choice to make Hero’s wedding dress a bright scarlet colour, a la scorned woman in The Scarlet Letter. Definitely intentional, the actress looked gorgeous, and a neat detail).

Emilio gave me some insights on the Claudio front, as he played Claudio in a Toronto production of this show a few years back. Emilio explained that it’s a heavy lift for Claudio to remain sympathetic after his catastrophic explosion at the altar, and that the original text “gives Claudios little to work with.” This is where writer Erin Shields‘ additional text comes into play.

Erin fleshed out Claudio’s apology and Hero’s acceptance of said apology toward the end of the show. Erin’s dialogue didn’t feel out of place, but it allowed Hero to have a voice in explaining how she sees Claudio’s pain and guilt, and admires his ability to acknowledge his mistakes. Hero is delicate, but not breakable, an ingenue but not an idiot. Erin’s text gives her a backbone. I thought that Allison and Austin played these roles with a lot of sweetness and care, and I believed their character arcs.

I like that Stratford makes space for both traditional stagings and modern adaptations in the same season, and produces each with as much conviction. Much Ado About Nothing was not edgy or risqué, but it was totally fantastic.

Much Ado About Nothing is playing at the Festival Theatre in Stratford until October 27, 2023. You can grab tickets here. If you’re in the 16-29 age bracket, make sure to sign up for Play On pricing, which saves you a ton.