Much Ado About Nothing (4/5 Stars)

“Thou and I were made too wise to woo peaceably.”

- Shakespeare

Among a multitude of others things, what is also great about Shakespeare is that it is supremely low budget. Production value can be added but it is not needed. After all, Shakespeare originally produced all of his plays on the bare stage of the Globe Theater. He had no sets, no furniture, and no curtains. The only things added to his words were generally props and costumes. Think about that. It means that anyone anywhere in the world could adapt a play with minimal cost and it could turn out to be just as the Bard originally intended. There aren’t even any intellectual property rights to buy. The whole catalog belongs to the world. The best Shakespeare I have seen (a performance of Richard II) wasn’t even in a theater. A bunch of actors just got together and put on a show for free in a park field, (Yes I tipped). The writing is so descriptive the lack of visual aid hardly ever matters. You want to know what it looked like when Ophelia committed suicide, just give a listen. Shakespeare makes his characters speak for uncharacteristically long lengths in order to compensate for the lack of visual aid. And perhaps to compensate for the rowdy crowds and not very good actors (both common staples of Globe Theater and amateur community theater nowadays) he marks his characters without the slightest trace of subtlety. It is very hard to screw up a performance in Shakespeare because the dialogue is so brazenly truthful, profound, and above all articulate. Given some patient translation you start to notice with startling clarity that what is being said are things we all think but rarely ever have the time, patience, or bravery to figure out how to actually say (even almost 500 years later!)

Unfortunately there is generally the impulse for modern moviemakers to add all those pretty things money and technology make possible even though Shakespeare made it all superfluous. This is sometimes done to an absurd degree. There are plenty of high-school movies that are adapted from Shakespeare but the only thing used is the plot. Even the words are ditched in favor of “accessibility.” Fie! I bite my thumb at thee! Directors need to have much more faith in the audience. Let us now consider director Joss Whedon’s take on “Much Ado About Nothing.” It is my opinion that this is how Shakespeare should be done and what is more, you can do it too. We all can.

The story of how this production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” is well known now. Joss Whedon had just finished production of a huge tent-pole movie named “The Avengers” and had two months before post-production started. He was in a funk. (As he probably should have been. See my review of “The Avengers”). His wife noticed this and counseled to instead of taking a planned vacation to spend the time doing one of his favorite hobbies, putting on a Shakespeare at his home. This has apparently been a long-time Whedon thing. To wind down after working on TV series all day, he would invite his company of actors over to his house and they would read through Shakespeare for fun. This time however, Whedon got out his digital camera and made a movie over a period of a couple of weeks. The result feels so Shakespeare. The entire thing takes place in a mansion. There is no production design besides the original architecture of the place. The cast is dressed in simple modern costume. The actors, all having worked with Whedon before and now on a movie not really intended for an audience beyond themselves, are friendly and relaxed. And the movie is shot in black and white, a perfect choice given that it allows the audience to not be overly distracted from the words. You can really focus in on them here, and like almost all Shakespeare, it is incredible stuff.

“Much Ado About Nothing” is a comedy about two pairs of lovers, one serious and the other comic. The serious romance concerns that of Claudio (played by Fran Kranz) and Hero (played by Jillian Morgese). In serious romance tradition, their love is perfect but besieged upon by outside forces intent on breaking them apart. In this case the subterfuge and sinister behavior of Don John (played by Sean Maher) who is at odds with Hero’s father Leonato (played by Clark Gregg). The comic romance concerns that of Benedick (played by Alexis Denisof) and Beatrice (played by Amy Acker). In comic romance tradition, the only thing keeping Beatrice and Benedick from each other is their own combative personalities. Benedick takes it with some pride that he won’t ever fall for a woman and Beatrice, a dormant feminist, doesn’t think much of men. Their relationship is marked by sharp patter, sharp jabs wit, and finally a smoldering recognition that each may have finally met their match in the other. A conspiracy is formed against them as well, however, it is hatched for the purpose of getting them together. Wicked lies are spread that each is secretly in love with the other! And….hilarity ensues.

All of this takes place at Leonato’s mansion over a weekend that contains a party that I would seriously have wanted to attend. What’s more, near the end, Nathan Fillion shows up as the incompetent yet very proud police chief Dogberry, and is hilarious for each and every second he is on the screen. All and all, this is a great piece of community theater that is sure to be much valued within the Wheedon-verse. It is a delight to be able to crash the party. If only the “The Avengers” was this good.

p.s. I have been inspired to put “Firefly” in my Netflix queue.