“Much Ado About Nothing”
Written by Shakespeare
Showing: First Folio Shakespeare Festival, Mayslake Peabody Estate, 31st Street and Rt. 83, Oak Brook, through Aug. 17
Tickets: $26
Contact: (630) 986-8067; firstfolio.org

By Lawrence Bommer

CFP theater editor

Lovers of hip hop can savor the gentle rap in Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s “Funk It Up About Nothin,’” now playing Navy Pier, but fans who prefer the original comedy with its depth of characterization and strangely happy ending should rush to DuPage County for this four-star, open-air revival. (On a good night there are a lot more stars.)

Exalting in the wit and wordplay, as intelligent as Shakespeare is eloquent, Michael Goldberg’s revival is faithful to all the full-blooded follies of youth that rampage through Shakespeare’s most extreme mating comedy: Unfounded jealousy almost wrecks the budding romance of Claudio and Hero, while Beatrice and Benedick, independent souls whose passions make them panic, must outwit their own elaborate defenses to find each other in a greater good. 

First Folio’s robust revival finds new inspiration for the play’s hi- and lo-jinks. Goldberg roots the action in early 19th-century Italy, with its songs and sunshine. It’s richly conveyed by Chris Jensen’s marble villa, a perfect setting in which Claudio and Benedick, gallant soldiers free from the Napoleonic wars, are even freer to fall in love with sweethearts they left behind.

Here his sheer youth, as much as any plot hatched by wicked Don John, explains why Claudio turns against his virtuous Hero—his whirlwind courtship is so fast it sows doubts that feed his fear of betrayal. Happily, with improbable help from a clumsy constabulary, Claudio is led back to his better nature—and an ending fueled by masculine wishful thinking. (I can be a bad boy and make false accusations, he seems to reason, and, if she loves me enough, still be forgiven!)

As always, the witfest that erupts between Shakespeare’s most reluctant lovers rewards revival. A modern-day Eve Arden, Melissa Carlson delivers a scathing and complex Beatrice who gracefully mellows into ardent “amore.” Nick Sandys’ brilliantly bumbling Benedick is also too clever for his own good but, happily, just smart enough to wise up to his own mockery of love.

Will Allan and Alison Lani play their fateful young lovers with impetuous fervor, from first blush to the final improbable reconciliation, while Patrick Clear as Hero’s splenetic father lurches memorably from benevolence to “vendetta.” Typifying gratuitous evil, Ben Whiting festers as Don John, an Iago without the subtext. Holding his own among many hilarious Dogberrys, past and future, a dumb and dour John Reeger presents a comic contradiction, a blustering imbecile who says everything wrong and does everything right. Every moment on this merry stage rewards attention. Shakespeare has seldom sounded better from actors so appropriate.