Lantern Theater Company presents Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing

The scene is firmly set in the intended time and place. The set by Meghan Jones evokes old Messina. The characters are fitted in ornate period costumes by Marla Jurglanis. But McMahon layers a healthy portion of modernity on top: film references, slapstick gags, actors breaking the fourth wall to comment on the Shakespeare of it all. You can imagine a time when this would have been a subversive approach, displacing a more mannered, fustier iteration, but the style is now so pervasive as to have itself become a standard.

As with many standards, it is also the case that its staying power can be attributed, in part, to its surefire efficacy. Such is the case with this Much Ado, a firecracker of a production that triumphantly catches the sparks of Shakespeare’s original rom-com. The play follows the twin plots of Claudio and Hero, whose imminent marriage is threatened by the machinations of the villainous Don John, and of Benedick and Beatrice, who just might fall in love if they can stop bickering long enough to do so.

Living and dying by the actors

This mode of Shakespeare often lives and dies on the strength of its actors, who are asked to be both the characters in the play and the fourth-wall-breaking troupe come to perform it. Thank goodness, then, for this show’s luminous captain, J Hernandez, who summons Benedick’s canny wit and roguish charm in a full-bodied performance that becomes a feat of physical exertion. His screwball antics could seem erratic in the hands of a lesser performer, but Hernandez commits to each choice so completely that he never once strikes a false note.

His Benedick finds a worthy partner in Karen Peakes’s sharp-witted Beatrice, who wears her ironic detachment like a suit of armor. Together, they realize the age-old interplay of not-so-young lovers, those who have long maintained that marriage is not for them and yet cannot deny a new yearning for connection. The play’s most heartfelt moments arrive when they ultimately let down their guards, the briefest of instances that nonetheless allow for the passage of love.

The rest of the ensemble, most of whom double roles, furnish the show with ample support. Jered McLenigan’s dual Don Pedro and Don John stand out for the sharpness of their contrast: Pedro’s courtly tenor, John’s villainous snarl. The latter role is particularly satisfying for its sheer one-dimensionality, the kind of Shakespearean villain whose whole thing is simply “I’m having a bad time, therefore everyone else must too.”

Kirk Wendell Brown imbues Leonato, Hero’s father, with a sturdy authority, while Alice Yorke delights in a minor turn as Margaret, a serving woman who can’t seem to catch a break. Anthony Lawton rounds out much of the rest of the parts, but never more notably than when he simultaneously plays Dogberry, Verges, and two watchmen, in a solo scene with a series of props and voices. It’s a dynamic swing of a choice, effectively modernizing much of Dogberry’s comedic relief, even if this iteration can occasionally slip into the “random = funny” ethos that so often is the bane of this style of Shakespeare. (Why does Dogberry enter shouting about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? I don’t know. Just roll with it.)

Forgiving frayed edges

The production also stumbles when it comes to Claudio (Trevor William Fayle), who is commonly one of the play’s trickier characters: an ostensible hero who is tricked into believing in his betrothed’s infidelity and publicly berates Hero (Cheyenne Parkes, appropriately doe-eyed) at the altar. This tonal shift—always sharp, always shocking—is here somewhat too choppy. Some of this can be attributed to the preceding scene with Dogberry, which lays the groundwork for the ensuing tragedy but here is played much too comedically. It is also the case, however, that Fayle’s Claudio is an erratic invention, offering a slew of halfway-delivered choices where a single committed one would do. It’s an unease that ultimately feels as though it belongs to the play, simply unsure of what it wants to do with him.

And yet we can mostly forgive these frays by the play’s conclusion, as is the way with Shakespearean comedy. Such delights have been presented, it argues, so how can we take issue? The play’s final scene, especially, achieves a wondrous intimacy, the astonishment of its characters at its seemingly impossible conclusion practically radiating off the stage. As the friar aptly enjoins, “Let wonder seem familiar.”