Something out of Nothing

A week late, a merry Much Ado

By Gibson Fay-LeBlanc

plays at the Saint Lawrence Arts & Community Center through May 27. Call (207) 772-5580.

HARLAN BAKER AS DOGBERRY: An idiotic small-town cop in polyester blues.

Fifteen years ago, the St. Lawrence Church closed its doors after 90 years as the centerpiece of the Munjoy Hill community. Seven years from saving it from the wrecking ball, Deirdre Nice stood Friday night on a brand-new stage in a brand-new theater alongside her partners in fundraising and construction, Bill Milliken, the executive director of the Friends of St. Lawrence, and Michael Levine, the director of Acorn Productions’ Much Ado About Nothing. The audience’s applause was loud and sustained and must have seemed a long time coming.

A mere three weeks ago you still had to squint pretty hard to see the theater taking shape amid the rubble. It is hard not to feel exhausted just thinking about all of the sheet rocking, painting, light hanging, platform building, and wiring that has been done since that time. And one thing is crystal clear after last night’s performance: Shakespeare’s tragic comedy Much Ado About Nothing, with Levine at the helm, was a wise choice for the space’s debut production.

Other directors, like Kenneth Branaugh with the popular film version of Much Ado from 1993, have emphasized the melodrama of Shakespeare’s story. Levine, however, puts the focus of this production squarely on the comedy, with a few serious moments thrown in for good measure, and succeeds in brightening what has been dark for so long.

Rather than swash-buckling capes and swords, Levine gives the audience tennis whites and finger sandwiches delivered by maids with ice tea. The setting is contemporary Newport, Rhode Island; the central characters are those who put the “upper” in upper crust. While many directors have struggled with the translation of Shakespeare to a modern setting, Levine’s artistic choices accentuate the Bard’s comedy, leaving the meaning intact.

Case in point: the actors’ costumes, superbly designed by Patrick Dullea. The ever-changing and ever-color-coordinated wardrobe becomes an active player in the production. We are greeted with the pastel suits, silk ties, and slicked hair of the CEO (rather than the Prince) of Aragon, Don Pedro (Harold Withee) and his entourage visiting the mansion of Leonato (John Hickson) of Messina. Then for each scene change, there is a new, more ridiculous color scheme. Pink leisure clothes. Lime green party wear. Purple wedding attire. The ensemble of costumes renders these high society characters all the more absurd, despite how seriously they take themselves.

A clear choice for comedy is also made with Claudio (Kurt Ela), the young right hand of Don Pedro. The CEO aids Claudio in arranging a love match with Hero (Elizabeth Enck), Leonato’s daughter, but while other directors, like Branaugh, have portrayed Claudio as the earnest, serious lover (picture Neal Patrick Harris), Ela plays him as the earnest lover who also happens to a bumbling buffoon. For instance, there is an extended scene in which he attempts, unsuccessfully, to spear an hors d’oeuvre from the vegetable tray. He never quite knows what to do or say, which makes him all the more likeable and humorous. It also makes the scenes in which he finally does declare — then later renounce — his love for Hero all the more affecting.

The caustic relationship between Don Pedro’s other confidante, Benedick (Paul Drinan), and Hero’s cousin Beatrice (Jessica Porter) also provides a bevy of zingers and amorous moments. Don Pedro leads the others in tricking these two proud peacocks into admitting their love for each other. When Porter — fresh from playing Lady Macbeth in a production at The Theater Project — finally hears Benedick, soul patch and all, swear his love for her, she manages to show all of Beatrice’s repressed, and now fulfilled, hopes in one quick look at the audience.

If there is any moment to question Levine’s direction and the acting, it occurs after Don Pedro’s half-brother, Don John (a humorously nasty Randall Tuttle), deceives Claudio into jilting and shaming Hero at the altar for the infidelity he thinks she has committed. Upon hearing that Hero has died from the shock of being disgraced, Don Pedro and Claudio are carefree and carry on like pigs in expensive brandy snifters. That these heretofore honest gentlemen are unaffected until later seems a misstep, though it is perhaps an attempt to underscore the complete shallowness of upper class society.

Much of the comedy in the second act derives from the performance of Harlan Baker as Dogberry, along with the other members of the Prince’s watch. Baker’s Dogberry, an idiotic small-town police chief in polyester blues, scans the crowd at the beginning of the second act as he might the kids on skateboards at the mall after dark. Beer gut and all, this cop, who Don Pedro proclaims is “too cunning to be understood,” steals the show with his misused and abused vocabulary and “I am an ass” speech.

These and other small touches by Levine, like skipping Hero’s overwrought “funeral” and playing on the old age of Leonato’s brother for humor, make this Much Ado enjoyable and fast-paced without getting in the way of Shakespeare’s poetic language and story.

Levine, Nice, and Milliken chose an amusing, audience-pleasing Much Ado About Nothing to open the new space at the St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center. For Nice and Milliken in particular, who now must refocus on booking more events for this new space, and raising money for the restoration of the church sanctuary, having the chance to sit back, take a breath, and laugh out loud must have felt pretty damn good.

Gibson Fay-LeBlanc can be reached at riverbetweenus@hotmail.com.