Love is an unavoidably beautiful yet frustrating part of life, while lies can slide off the tongue.
That’s the underlying theme that William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing explores. It’s no wonder this play is one of Shakespeare’s most frequently retold works, even more so than the famous Romeo and Juliet. Calvin Theatre Company (CTC) has now joined in retelling it with a unique twist, setting the story in a 2000s-era shopping mall.
For the past few weekends, the Gezon Auditorium has been transformed into a 2004 shopping mall. With a well-arranged set of clothing stores and a sharp lighting scheme of pink, cyan, and yellow, the stage beautifully captures the snarky, colorful mood of the time. The set not only includes various shops and Leonato’s perpetually unopened restaurant but also features a broken escalator and the sounds of Converse sneakers screeching the floor.
In this mall, Leonato’s restaurant is the center of the story. The nobleman Leonato warmly welcomes his long-absent friends returning from war: Prince Don Pedro, soldiers Claudio and Benedick, and Don Pedro’s sibling, Dawn John.
Claudio and Hero, Leonato’s lovely daughter, fall in love at first sight, while the witty Benedick and the cynical Beatrice, Hero’s cousin who has no interest in romance, discover their feelings for each other through arguments and deceptions.
While marriage and disguise drive the drama in the original play, CTC offers more than that. This production serves up amusing humor and a lovely happy ending, balancing Shakespeare’s sarcasm with the 2000s jokes, and concludes the play with a lively breakdance scene.
After the performance, many audience members engaged in a talkback with the cast and crew. Audience engagement like that made the play even more immersive. It was palpable in every show at the Gezon Auditorium how the audience engaged with laughter and reactions, drawing them into the action — just as Director John Scritchfield noted in the talkback, he highlights how Shakespearean plays often break the fourth wall, making the audience feel like characters in the play, and for actors there is no better achievement than seeing their audience immersed in what they are delivering.
CTC did a fantastic job, not only in delivering Shakespeare’s difficult, not-so-English lines, but also in reimagining this classic within a millennial setting. From early-2000s humor and goth-inspired costumes to a fresh take on themes of vulnerability and honesty in relationships, Calvin Theatre’s Much Ado About Nothing is a remarkable success.
