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3 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Home News Latest Stories The new normal under climate change? Public Meetings: March 2-6 Mail Tribune 100: March 1, 1915 Since You Asked: Who cleans up around the Medford library? Emergency services, March 1 Crime, Courts and Emergency Services Emergency services, March 1 Two injured in White City house fire Family, friends of Central Point fire victim try to cover costs Feds charge California couple with medical device fraud Emergency services, Feb. 28 Politics and Elections Judge upholds Phoenix's moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries Ballots on Jackson County marijuana tax go out Friday Brown's inauguration brings hope to local lawmakers Kate Brown sworn in as Oregon's 38th governor Gov. 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Guest Opinion: Bill would shore up legal aid funding Lifestyle Latest stories Review: In "Much Ado," why not let Shakespeare be Shakespeare? Adopt a Pet: Moby Wedding: Schwartz-Gibbs If it gives you joy, keep it Discover the beauty and wonder of Oxnard Food Restaurant Inspections: Sunday, March 1 Community blog: Support local CSA farms by signing up Saturday Joanna McQuillan Weeks: Cheeseburger pie is the perfect winter comfort food Page H. 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'She Stoops' rises on SOU stage SOU presents 'She Stoops to Conquer' 'The Glass Menagerie' is polished and professional OSF kicks off its 2015 season Music Rogue Valley Symphony showcases Anton Bruckner and Richard Wagner Live Music in Local Clubs HAPA plays the Historic Ashland Armory An all-new Rising Stars music competition kicks off this weekend Ronny Cox plays the Unitarian Fellowship Community Events Third Fridays showcases local artists Southern Oregon Rod and Custom Show Ashland's First Friday Art Walk showcases new exhibits by regional artists Jacksonville celebrates Chinese New Year Dining Restaurant Inspections: Sunday, March 1 Great Outdoor Grill offers healthful options Restaurant Inspections: Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015 Saigon Xich Lo Vietnamese cuisine The zwickels shall flow Tempo Videos Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » Obits Blogs TV Listings Movie Listings Oregon Outdoors Oregon Healthy Living Magazines/Special Sections Business Services NEWS NOW Our View: Drawing back the curtain on government ... Public Meetings: March 2-6 ... GUEST OPINION: Police, community should work to prevent profiling ... Our View: Drawing back the curtain on government ... Public Meetings: March 2-6 ... GUEST OPINION: Police, community should work to prevent profiling ... REVIEW Review: In "Much Ado," why not let Shakespeare be Shakespeare? By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune MailTribune.com By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Mar. 1, 2015 @ 12:01 am By Bill Varble for the Mail Tribune Posted Mar. 1, 2015 @ 12:01 am » Social News p bs:newslist StartDate="20121121" EndDate="p bs:datecalc Months="3"" DateSort="1" UseObjects="1" ObjectClass="81" Taxonomywords="2325,665" ExactTaxonomyMatch="1" Image="1" Count="4" --> The triumphant warriors of "Much Ado About Nothing," flush with victory and high spirits, are approaching the estate of Leonato, the governor of Messina, as the play opens. The apparent ease of their success in battle is cause for great joy. "How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?" Leonato (a pitch-perfect Jack Willis) asks the messenger sent by Don Pedro, Prince of Arragon and the company's commander. "But few of any sort, and none of name," says the messenger. These young men got to strut their derring-do and get off easy. And that is essentially what this sunny comedy has to say about war. Life, and battle, may not be a bed of roses, but in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's new production of "Much Ado About Nothing," scenic designer Scott Bradley's abstract world is a stage full of roses, thousands of them hanging over the actors in great strings on an otherwise barren set. These suggest the largely feminine, celebratory, almost pastoral world presided over by Leonato. Giddy with victory, Don Pedro's (Cristofer Jean) jaunty company will party and lollygag — for at least a month, Don Pedro says — and it's in this ebullient atmosphere that the two romances that comprise the play's double plot will blossom. Benedick (Danforth Comins) and Beatrice (Christiana Clark) strive mightily to convince each other — and themselves — that the force passing between them is contempt, but it's clear to the audience that it is in fact love. The merry war they wage with their arsenal of barbed wit is the model for a later century's screwball comedies with the enemies/lovers played by the likes of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant and Barbara Stanwyck. Count Claudio (Reynaldo Piniella) and Leonato's daughter, Hero (Leah Anderson), in contrast, are callow, two-dimensional young people who could almost swap plays with other generic young lovers in Shakespeare. Although the complex personalities of Beatrice and Benedick rivet us, Claudio and Hero provide the raw material for the theme of male jealousy in a plot driven by the machinations of the "plain-dealing villain" Don John, Don Pedro's evil brother. Except that now he's not. This time out, Don John (Regan Linton) is Don Pedro's wounded sister. OK. It's fashionable to fool around with gender in Shakespeare, who himself liked to fool around with it, and sometimes this can be fresh and provocative (as in last summer's breezy OSF production of "Two Gentlement of Verona," in which the gents were ladies). Then there are the other times. As the audience enters, Don John is a slumped, shadowy figure upstage in a wheelchair, her head covered with a garment, or maybe bandages. There is smoke, a distant rumble, perhaps the sound of battle. It's a somber effect, suited to a tragedy, but there is no such note in Shakespeare's play. Lileana Blain-Cruz, who directed, seems to be trying to suggest that play combines elements of tragedy and comedy, and that the Claudio-Hero courtship exists on the poetic scale of tragedies such as "Othello" or romances such as "The Winter's Tale." The main trouble with that theory is that these characters don't get killed. They get married. And we laugh a lot. And the bonds of love may be temporarily sundered by a villain, but love triumphs in the end. That the audience never doubts this outcome is one of the reasons why "Much Ado" is always popular. Comedy in Shakespeare is about restoring order to a disrupted social fabric, and that's what happens here when the linguistically challenged Dogberry (Rex Young) and his rustic mates hilariously uncover Don John's dastardly scheme. Blain-Cruz seems to be trying to answer the question: Why is Don John such an villain? And her answer seems to be because she was wounded in war and carries deep bitterness, maybe even something like PTSD. But looking for motivation in Shakespearean villains is a fool's errand. Great villains such as Richard III and Iago and lesser ones such as Edmund and Aaron the Moor and Don John don't have motivation in a modern, psychological sense. But Shakespeare wrote them carefully. And they are simply wicked. Don John is a stereotypical Elizabethan villain with no need for some grafted on "motivation." He (or she) would just "rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose," and that's that. It's as if Blaine-Cruz has thrust Don John into a role of resisting the patriarchy. Puh-lease. That's like making Macbeth a Secret Service guy guarding King Duncan. Don John is a vecchi, an old man who is an obstacle to the lovers' union. He is the old patriarchal world that must be replaced by the new, inclusive world of the lovers that is a comedy's end point. Linto plays the character forcefully enough, but nobody is going to buy Don John as a proto-feminist. Amid all this, Clark is sensational as Beatrice, bringing high energy, grace and spot-on comic timing to every scene she's in. And Comins is a forceful, boyish, likeable Benedick, even if he's a bit of a dufus. Young is a funny enough Dogberry, whose tongue should be locked up for assault on the English language. But for some reason he spends most of his time on stage riding a Segway, one of those goofy, little two-wheeled "personal vehicles." This is amusing visually but has the unfortunate effect of distracting us from the avalanche of malapropisms, which is the whole point. Lighting Designer Yi Zhao bathes the comic scenes that make up most of the play in gorgeous tones, then renders the apparent success of Don John's villainy in dull, jolting contrast. One scene features strobe lights, which are normally used on the stage to highlight a key moment, for no apparent reason. Composer and sound designer Chad Raines has created a rather abstract, often jangly score that at times competes or clashes with the action. The happy ending music is for some reason full of harsh ambiguity. Theater is a deal between playwright and director and audience to believe in an imaginary world with its own rules. There's nothing wrong with finding new resonances in a classic, but tacking on one's own agenda in an attempt at politically correct, post-modern "relevance" inevitably feels forced. Sure, the world then as now was filled with war and inequalities based on sex, race and class. It's still best to let Shakespeare be relevant on his own, like it or not. Reach freelance writer Bill Varble at [email protected] . 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