The first Shakespeare play I remember ever watching was As You Like It. It was on TV when I was in high school, and for whatever reason I decided I would watch it. I have no idea what production it was or who was in it. The first Shakespeare play I remember actually watching live was Much Ado About Nothing. It was a production put on by my (quite small) high school. It probably wasn’t that great a production, but I remember enjoying it immensely. My brother played the role of Balthazer the singer (“tax not so bad a voice to slander music more than once”).
It seems fitting, some thirty years after that introduction to the Bard, that we kick off this blog with a Shakespeare weekend review that involves watching both As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing.
Let me give a quick word about who we are and why our blog matters. My wife Debbie and I are Shakespeare groupies. We have been our whole married lives. As time goes on I hope to tell our story more, but suffice it to say that we have seen every one of Shakespeare plays performed live. Most of them we have seen multiple times. We have seen Hamlet done 16 times. Our quest to see all of Shakespeare’s plays performed live is an interesting story that we will post as a separate page. In the almost 20 years since we have been married, we have probably seen 200 Shakespeare performances. At some point I will get an exact number, but I guess that’s pretty close. That doesn’t make us scholars or even experts, but it does put us above most of the fans, actors, and actresses that we have met.
A typical Bard weekend for us involves locking onto a play. In this case, we already had tickets to see As You Like It at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST). We have been subscribers to the CST since 1993. We have talked with Artistic Director Barbara Gaines on a couple of occasions, but that was when the theater performed at the Ruth Page Theater.
So we decide on a show and then look for something else to add. Actually, we are on enough mailing lists for theaters that the opportunities come to us. In this case it was the opportunity to see Much Ado About Nothing on Sunday at the Merle Reskin Blackstone Theater. This was a production of the Depaul Theater School—which, by the way, is the best bargain in all of Chicago for theater fans.
So on Saturday we took off to Navy Pier for AYLI. This was our fifth or sixth time seeing the play and at least our third time at CST. The problem facing CST is how to keep coming up with variety when its core curriculum, as it were, is 37 plays (give or take one or two depending on your theory of authorship). This theater seems to do quite well because we keep coming back. The CST experience is well worth the price. Obviously the productions are almost always great. AYLI was no exception. Kate Fry, one of our favorites from multiple shows at CST and other theaters in the area (most notably the Court Theater), was delightful as Rosalind. We hadn’t seen her for a few years, so it was good to see her again in a role.
Many scholars believe that the role of Rosalind is the greatest female role in Shakespeare. She is in virtually every scene in the play. She has the most lines of any female character in any of Shakespeare’s plays. Regardless, Kate Fry was wonderful. Chaon Cross, who we got to see in several productions in previous years at Court, was great as Celia. Ross Lehman as Jacques was a bit more chipper than most who take on that role. The story (as many of Shakespeare’s plays do) has a few holes in it, but overall it’s a good time. My wife Debbie particularly liked the set for this production, which featured a large tree formed by the floorboards of the stage bending upwards—visual poetry! “All the world’s a stage!” However, she thought the large clock that hung over the set throughout the entire play was an unnecessary and pretentious.
On Sunday afternoon, we and our sons headed to the Depaul Theater School’s matinee performance of Much Ado About Nothing. MAAN is certainly one of my favorite of Shakespeare’s comedies. The merry war of words between Beatrice and Benedick, when done well, can be quite funny. Further, this play has several of the conventions that practically define one of the Bard’s comedies: overheard dialogue, intrigue, and of course, love. Beatrice and Benedick are quite familiar with each other when they meet up. “My dear lady disdain,” says Benedick of Beatrice. They snipe at each other like a pair of former lovers still arguing over leaving the seat up. In fact, I believe that Beatrice and Benedick are an ex-couple. It’s not often stressed in the productions I’ve seen, but at one point Beatrice notes that once Benedick had her heart but no longer.
The story of the play surrounds the love of one noble hero named Claudio for a beautiful maiden named Hero. There are indications in the play that these two have met before as well. Claudio walks onto the stage, sees Hero and immediately falls in love and just has to have her. But, he’s not man enough to do his own wooing, so his boss Don Pedro has to do it for him. Despite a few misunderstandings, he eventually “gets the girl” only to be fooled into thinking her unfaithful, and he dumps her at the altar. Our young hero is rather mercurial in regards to our fair Hero. Nevertheless, all is made right in the end, and it proves to be much ado about nothing.
We don’t have another Shakespeare weekend planned until Easter when this year we’ll be celebrating the Bard’s Birthday (April 23) in Stratford, England. We’ll keep you informed!
BARD WATCHING: A blog dedicated to watching Shakespeare's plays in live performance
