If, as Shakespeare once famously said, a sad tale’s best for winter, summer surely demands a happy one—and few of his plays command more laughs than the battle-of-the-sexes romp Much Ado About Nothing. There’s a reason it’s been produced three times in the last 15 years alone at the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park, including the current Kenny Leon–directed version—with the sensational Danielle Brooks, star of TV’s Orange Is the New Black and a Tony nominee for Broadway’s The Color Purple, leading an all-black cast—playing at Central Park’s open-air Delacorte Theater through June 23. It’s giddy, warm weather–appropriate fun.
Sure, the whole subplot about the holier-than-thou Claudio (Jeremie Harris) slut-shaming the sweet-natured Hero (Margaret Odette) at the altar—forcing her to fake her own death—is a bit of a downer. And how can Hero’s own father, the benevolent Leonato (Chuck Cooper, having a grand old time), believe his daughter is an “approved wanton” and “she knows the heat of a luxurious bed”? All that ugliness is easily eclipsed by the jovial bickering of sharp-tongued singletons Beatrice (Brooks) and Benedick (Grantham Coleman), who are inevitably thrown together by their scheming marriage-minded friends and family. Benedick’s fellow soldier Don Pedro (Billy Eugene Jones) hatches a plan “to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection”: “If we can do this,” he tells fellow tricksters Claudio, Hero, and Leonato, “Cupid is no longer an archer; his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love gods.”
When you have two well-matched actors, there’s nothing better than watching the acerbic Beatrice and the caustic Benedick engage in a clash of titanic wits. Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater were such a pair in the 2014 production in the Park, setting off sparks so intense they were almost visible. Brooks and Coleman, meanwhile, are fantastic, tossing the Bard’s barbs like Cy Young winners firing fastballs. And Brooks is equally adept at accessing Beatrice’s unmitigated rage. “O God, that I were a man!” she seethes after Claudio’s altar antics. “I would eat his heart in the marketplace.”
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★★ review here.]
A Tony winner for his 2014 Denzel Washington–toplined revival of A Raisin in the Sun, Leon has definitely put his stamp on this Shakespeare, transporting the setting from 16th-century Italy to 21st-century America; instead of an estate in Messina, we’re outside a mansion in Atlanta—home of the True Colors Theatre Co., which Leon founded—on the eve of the 2020 election. (Note the “Stacey Abrams 2020” banner.) He’s also amped up the music—some of which works (Balthasar’s “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more/ Men were deceivers ever” is replaced by “No, don’t you cry, don’t you cry no more you knew he was a liar” by Choir Boy 2019 special Tony Award recipient Jason Michael Webb), and some of which doesn’t (Beatrice and her girlfriends start the show by singing Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”—cool cool—then segue into, inexplicably, “America the Beautiful”). Perhaps most excitingly, he’s brought in ultra-hot choreographer/just-minted Tony nominee Camille A. Brown (Choir Boy) to add some spectacular dances. When Don Pedro says “I know we shall have reveling tonight,” just you wait!
But Leon’s best work—Radio Golf, Fences, Raisin—tends toward the dramatic, and he leans so heavily on Much Ado’s darker moments that some of the lighter ones get almost completely obscured. For instance, the sheer ineptitude of the constable Dogberry (Lateefah Holder) and his ragtag crew yields hardly any giggles. Holder is clearly capable of landing a laugh, but she looks so efficient and put-together (the tailored, contemporary costumes are by Emilio Sosa) that the character’s many malapropisms just go over our heads.
As for the ending, Leon has chosen to try to make a statement—one that, regrettably, sucks most of the joy out of Shakespeare’s cheerful conclusion. As Beatrice sings, what’s going on?
Much Ado About Nothing opened June 11, 2019, at the Delacorte Theater and runs through June 23. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
