Courtship and Cozening

By Laurence I. Barrett

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Dogberry, the buffoon-cop in Much Ado About Nothing, seems unable to know his duty, let alone do it. Yet through his good offices, villains and sweethearts alike get theirs. So it is with A.J. Antoon, 27, the Joseph Papp prodigy-protege who staged That Championship Season. Now Antoon has directed the New York Shakespeare Festival celebration of Much Ado as if unaware of the usual approach to Shakespearean farce, the mannered conceits that often seem aimed at pleasing only the performers and antiquarians. Ignorant of his "duty," Antoon knows only that the play is a comedy and that audiences like to laugh. He does justice to both.

The time and place are not 16th century Messina, but turn-of-the-century America. In both periods, wars can be won with small loss and loves pursued with grand stratagems. Courtship and cozening can unfold while the players dance the maxixe. Antoon and Choreographer Donald Saddler abscond with reality so neatly that one is willing to believe in the characters.

Sam Waterston is Benedick to the last corpuscle. He brandishes his cigar like a swagger stick. He discovers his love half knowingly, but with astonishment nonetheless, like a child finding the tooth fairy's silver dollar. Kathleen Widdoes makes Beatrice a proper combination of cold wit and hot blood. When she exclaims, "I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husband!"

one understands fully Don Pedro's instant proposal and wants to shout affection not only for her, but for the entire

Company.

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