Review: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING at A Noise Within

This stage is, well, it's kind of a wreck at the outset.

Beat-up chairs are strewn about in messy piles. Set pieces are placed haphazardly. Everything looks cluttered, unprepared and generally off...until the lights go down and the 13 members of Guillermo Cienfuegos's nimble company spill onto the stage and, in the space of about 30 seconds, put Angela Balogh Calin's scenery in order, leaving behind a radio and a record player to pipe out some '40s era hits. Leonato and his family (comely daughter Hero; wisecracking niece Beatrice) will be on presently - with Erika Soto's Beatrice blowing a sardonic raspberry at the mention of her long-time sparring partner Benedick's name. Then we get the arrival of the soldiers: "Prince" Don Pedro, the aforementioned Benedick and lovestruck Claudio who ride up in in style. Then there's more music

We're late in World War II, but Sicily has been liberated and in this corner of Messina, it's time to revel. We know these lords and ladies. There will be "ado" over much, but all will turn out well.

And, damn, but A Noise Within is good at this! It seems almost inconceivable that in the course of its 32-year history, the acclaimed Pasadena-based company has only staged Shakespeare's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING in two previous seasons. Granted, the play is one of Shakespeare's frothier comedies (the title says it all), the classical equivalent of crowd-pleasing, low-hanging fruit. A strong company would have to have a seriously misguided approach, employ unskilled actors or work extra hard to c*ckit up.

Well, where the classics are concerned, L.A. doesn't have any institution stronger than A Noise Within and if Cienfuegos (making his company debut), his wonderful actors and designers are working hard, they sure make it looks easy. From the first glimpse of that rampaged stage to the final dance, this MUCH ADO is an end-to-end delight.

True repertory companies may be a thing of the past, but an ANW production often employs several resident artists for any given performance (particularly ones with large casts). So followers of the company can see Soto - superb as a very different Shakesperean heroine in last season's ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL - transformed into the brassy and love-smacked Beatrice. She's up against a Benedick played by the equally marvelous Joshua Britton, a relative newcomer to ANW stages. More familiar faces abound: Frederick Stuart's strutting Don Pedro and Rafael Goldstein in snide villainy mode as the bastard Don John and an absolute riot after he straps on on a white beard and an incomprehensible mumble as the ancient Verges. Between the newcomers and veterans, there isn't a sour apple in the entire MUCH ADO orchard.

A good hunk of MUCH ADO is devoted to individuals tricking Beatrice and Benedick (who ostensibly hate each other) into falling in love. Benedick is gulled first as he is hiding under a jeep that he was repairing and, subsequently, while he is stuffed into a rolling tool cart that keeps getting bashed. with a club. Benedick may fancy himself a witty guy, but Bitton with his Queens accent and soldierly affect makes him anything but aristocratic. The dude is at home both underneath a hood or hobnobbing with servants (he has a nice tender moment with Jeanne Syquia's Margaret). The actor has charm to burn and it makes perfect sense that he and Soto's Beatrice are both completely mismatched and completely right for each other.

This is a MUCH ADO in which the participants find love not just difficult but scary. Witness Soto's look of utter "What-did-I-just-do?" terror when her railing against romance causes Stuart's Don John to idly propose to her. Tongue-tied or otherwise reluctant wooers have to be physically nudged into each other's arms by other people: go on, kiss her/him already, you dope!

Cienfuegos lets the comedy play out at every opportunity. Wesley Mann's affably puffed up Constable Dogberry and the neighborhood watch make comic hay with the captureof malefactors Conrade (Randy Thompson)and Borachio (Michael Uribes). In a quite charming bit of pulling back the curtain exposition, the audience watches groups of actors playing dual roles change costumes and morph into other characters. Some of this doubling is on the creative end of things (Nicholas Petroccione as scratchy-voiced troubadour Balthazar and ladies maid Ursula), but it always works.

In addition to its vibrancy, the production is also visually gorgeous. A shout-out, therefore, to the creative team, scenic designer Calin, costumer Christine Cover Ferro, lighting designer Ken Booth and sound designer Chris Moscatiello for surrounding these actors with all the right visual trappings. Under Joyce Guy's choreography, the early masked revels (staged as a frisky tarantella) and the ending celebratory dance (to "In the Mood," of course) are terrific.

Now comes the portion of my review - and, yeah, I've said it often - where I remind people to get their Bard on where and when they have the opportunity. A Noise Within has been doing what they do for a long time. They rarely misfire in this arena and here's hoping they bring Cienfuegos back soon. In recent years, the company that once staged at least two Shakespeare plays per season, while not exactly moving away from the fare you'd study in a literature class, has certainly diversified its arsenal with more contemporary plays. If any evidence is needed that a 400-year-old playwright can be both good for the brains and an absolute kick in the ass, that proof is marvelously strutting its stuff in Pasadena through mid-March.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING plays through March 12 at 3352 E Foothill Blvd., Pasadena

Photo Credit: Craig Schwartz

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