Much Ado About Nothing

This isn't exactly a review because I wasn't able to see the whole show. But here are some thoughts based on what I saw.

• The rhythms of African-American casual conversation fit beautifully with Shakespeare's rhythms. In fact, particularly from Danielle Brooks, it was some of the most real-sounding Shakespearean dialogue I have ever heard. A real treat.
• Seeing theatre at the Delacorte in Central Park is always lovely. We had an almost full moon and beautiful weather.
• The Claudio-Hero subplot is ugly, ugly, ugly. The fairly young, fairly multiculti audience certainly thought so. When Hero's dad says that, if she's not a virgin, better she be dead, the audience gasped.
• I theoretically like the idea of having Dogberry played by a woman, But Lateefah Holder comes across as extremely smart and competent so she has to fight against type to play the role.
• Director Kenny Leon plays with making Much Ado political but doesn't really do much with the idea.
• While the choreography by Camille A. Brown and the singing were great fun, they slowed down the show.

I think this will be my last Much Ado, at least for a few years. I've seen many productions, going back to the incredibly charming Sam Waterson-Kathleen Widdows version in the '70s, and over time the Claudio-Hero subplot has come to overpower the Beatrice-Benedick main plot. 

You gotta wonder what centuries of literature would have focused on if writers had simply realized that a woman having sex is not a sin or an awful thing or necessarily that big a deal. Poof! There go thousands of pages by Wharton and Tolstoy and Flaubert and Zola and and and. 

Oh well.

Wendy Caster

(row N, free ticket)

New York Blackout: 1977

Forty years ago, on July 13, 1977, I was at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, watching Threepenny Opera starring Ellen Greene, Philip Bosco, Caroline Kava, and Tony Azito. I was standing on the side with some friends who were ushers, while my sister Holly and friend Roger were in the audience, bored out of their minds. B.O.R.E.D. (I loved the show but completely understood that Richard Foreman's direction was not for everyone.)

Ellen Greene, Raul Julie
in Threepenny Opera

Ellen Greene was singing "Pirate Jenny."

The lights went out. The amplification went out.

And Greene didn't miss a beat. She filled the large, roofless, dark Delacorte with her amazing voice, bringing shivers and goosebumps to the crowd. When Greene finished, we exploded with applause and cheers. (Years later, I discussed that night with someone who had been in the cast, and she said, "It sounded like World War II had ended.")

The show was stopped. The orchestra played for a while. Some of the performers danced on stage. And then the announcement came: This was a city-wide blackout. They sent us home.