Today I saw the first play of the CalShakes season, an adapted version of Much Ado About Nothing. The gang included Andy and Bill as well as Doug who is back for the summer from Mississippi. I was a bit underwhelmed with the production. The adaptation featured an abridged version of the play framed within a larger story. The play starts peripheral to the aftermath of the wedding of Hero and Claudio, and the servants are cleaning up. They start talking about the back story of the wedding which turns into them acting out the original play, with a twist of some ladies’ parts played by men, and some men’s parts played by ladies. I’ve gotten a bit bored the last couple of years with the gimmick of gender switching of roles. The play within a story device made this a little less gimmicky, but I think the verbal sparing and the sharp language lacked some of the punch of a normal production. It was also quite brief (1:40), cutting out much of the constable comedy, which doesn’t usually work for me anyway.
It was overall a warm enjoyable evening getting back together with some of the old gang. I learned some things about the play I didn’t know during the grove lecture (e.g., multiple meanings for the play’s title). We’ll see how the rest of the season goes with the new Artistic Director.
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