Much Ado About Nothing

For its18th production of Shakespeare in the Gardens, Directions Theatre Pty Ltd present Much Ado About Nothing set in a 90s Music Festival with a novice director to inject a new angle to the well known comedy. Although it seems light and possibly trivial, a darker theme underlying Much Ado About Nothing is what happens when wordplay meets hearsay.

Ellen Roe, an accomplished young actor who has performed in two Shakespeare in the Gardens productions, made her directorial debut with a balanced cast of new and experienced actors. Roe brought out the energy and vitality of the wordplay between would-be lovers Benedick (Jared Goldsmith) and Beatrice (Simone Dobber), who inject considerable chemistry into their characters, two people who pretend not to like each other.

The other set of sweet young lovers Claudio (Michael Stratford Hutch) and Hero (Kallista Adkins) were well-matched, although the plot-turn, when Claudio was persuaded by DJ (Lillie McNamara) and her brother Don Pedro (Matt Wilson) to publicly reject his fiancée at their wedding, was less fathomable. This is where hearsay can harm, and I have never thought that the reunion between the lovers was properly resolved.

The actors made good use of the setting in the beautiful gardens, against the backdrop of established plants and the mellow brick walls with their arched openings. Entrances and exits were especially dramatic, and our imaginations happily believed that the shrubbery was a streetscape, marketplace or hall.  

Al fresco productions can be fraught with challenges: technical, for producers, including competition with other sounds, such as traffic and bird noises; and compensating against the open space, for actors, who need to constantly be aware of diction and projection. The audience too, can be challenged, in trying to hear. The appreciative opening-night audience, obviously well-versed in the dialogue and plot, were well up with the action, while the cast did a really good job of voice projection in the outdoors.

Matt Wilson turned in a good performance as Don Pedro, as did Megan Brockie, as Hero’s mother Leonata. Other excellent performances came from Christopher Forbes, as Dogberry, Emma Skalicky, as Margaret and Andy Aisbett as Balthasar.

I would have liked to have seen the “music festival” element further exploited, but all up, this was a wonderful show. This wordy, tricky play is a good vehicle for actors, and the energetic cast gave us a terrific evening of entertainment.

Merlene Abbott