If you are going to wage war onstage, it might as well be the “skirmish of wit” of Much Ado About Nothing, the audience-friendly romantic comedy often produced by Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival in its 24-year history.
This year’s return to the play is a tribute to the company’s founding member, recent artistic director and frequent leading man, Kevin Crawford, who died last fall as he was preparing to again assume the role of military officer and confirmed bachelor Benedick. He had completed an edit of the text, a streamlining of the already brisk-paced script to an hour-and-three-quarters running time — including intermission — and a cast of 13.
Well, make that 16, since the production’s director, PBSF co-founder and producer Kermit Christman — who usually assumes that the company’s namesake’s plays need added entertainment values — injects three human felines who dance about as transitions between scenes. Now why didn’t Shakespeare think of that?
Christman also is fond of moving the plays about in time and place, shifting this Much Ado to contemporary Venice. Venice is visually suggested by a few striped canal poles and the update is represented by cell phones, pistols and current Euro-garb. Otherwise, the production is pretty straightforward, perhaps an indication that the academic Crawford’s reverence for what Shakespeare wrote has rubbed off in Christman.
Stepping into Crawford’s huge shoes onstage is rotund, scruffy-bearded, but verbally adept Zack Myers. He puts his emphasis on the playful nature of Benedick and even interpolates a few vocal phrases from Rigoletto’s “La Donna e Mobile” for opera fans.
He is well-paired with throaty Krys Parker as Beatrice, his “Lady Distain,” a longtime company mainstay who knows her way around an icy putdown. As in many a rom-com, they are both in denial that they are made for each other, a fact evident to everyone else. When they hear that the other has romantic feelings, however, their egos allow them to accept the possibilities of love.
Shakespeare balances their lightweight story line with the darker subplot of Beatrice’s cousin Hero and her fiancé, Claudio, one of Benedick’s soldier underlings. He is duped into believing she has been unfaithful and dumps her at the altar, causing Hero to faint dead away. To his credit, Christman does not shrink from this melodramatic mirror image of the main tale, though neither Pierre Tannous nor Kelly Ainsworth is any great shakes in the acting department.
Crawford’s edited text whittles down the low comic characters to language-mangling Constable Dogberry and just two dim-witted henchmen. As Dogberry, Seth Trucks scores some laughs with his exaggerated, clipped delivery and a well-executed pratfall.
While it could be more Venetian, Ann Cadaret’s set design is attractive, featuring an arbor-adorned colonnade. Madison May’s costumes are stylish and new technical director, Pete Marzilli, provides crucial crisp amplification of the dialogue.
As usual, the less said about the supporting players, the better. But Much Ado About Nothing succeeds or fails on its Benedick and Beatrice, and fortunately those roles are in the capable hands of Myers and Parker.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival, Seabreeze Amphitheatre, Carlin Park, A1A and Indiantown Road, Jupiter. Through Sunday, July 20. Admission: Free, $5 donation suggested. Call: (561) 966-7099.