Not Much
At Ritz Theatre's Much Ado, it takes only a moment or two to know you're in for a long night.
Sometimes it takes only a moment or two to know you're in for a long night. Consider The Ritz Theatre's Much Ado About Nothing, a production that slides the semiprofessional Haddon Township, N.J., company down toward its community theater roots.
Bart Healy's set seems colorful at first, but his bland Mediterranean landscapes representing Shakespeare's Messina intermingle with abstract panels partially hiding a crude scaffolding and simple black open platforms, as if the job was never finished.
Generic Elizabethan-sounding music is bad enough, but I soon missed it when it was replaced by contemporary folkish music (Enya, Sting and even the theme from Chariots of Fire), which often drowns out dialogue — except when masks muddle it first.
And then, the characters: Kimberly Valde-Curless gives a pretty but hollow recitation as Beatrice, wasting some of her best snappy retorts in the opening scene while fiddling awkwardly with bow and arrows. Benedick, her supposed equal in wit, is voiced like Monty Python's Gumby by Kumar Dari, all one long loud bellowing note. Nicholas Muni's Claudio, the lovesick count, poses like a prissy ballet dancer, and has no onstage chemistry (despite their professed real-life affection — I read the program!) with Casey Williams-Ficarra's lifeless Hero.
Director Denise George works around the play, striving to make every exit funny (how many times can characters go the wrong way?), blocking actors like chess pieces (how can Beatrice profess her love to Benedick while walking away from him over and over?) and slowing Stephen Coar's oafish Dogberry with overchoreographed slapstick from his henchmen. She invents comedy around, rather than through, the lines and action, resulting in a Much Ado — even with apparent cuts — clocking in at a stupefying three hours.
Some performances ease the pain: Benjamin Lovell's Leonato provides clarity and dignity, Laura Catlaw's vivacious Margaret adds much-needed spunk and Raphael Ellis's Balthasar sings prettily, even if his pop songs don't fit the world suggested by Peggy Walsh's more-or-less Elizabethan costumes.
All in all, Much Ado is the sort of glossed-over Shakespeare that gives him a bad name among the uninitiated: Long, muddled and stridently unfunny, it's truly about nothing.
Much Ado About Nothing, through April 15, The Ritz, 915 White Horse Pike, Haddon Township, N.J., 856-858-5230, www.ritztheatreco.org
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