Summary 
Elegant but languidly paced romantic comedy, more a refined period piece than a witty display of verbal fireworks. Mature performers seem inane rather than revitalized by romance, and the production aches for passion or high comedy to redeem a casual, nearly sleepwalking pace.
Design
Directed by Stephen Ouimette. Designed by Michael Gianfresco. Lights by John Munro. Sound by Todd Charlton.
Cast
Lucy Peacock (Beatrice), Adrienne Gould (Hero), Gary Reineke (Leonato), Peter Donaldson (Benedick), Shane Carty (Don Pedro), Wayne Best (Don John), Jeffrey Wetsch (Claudio), Thom Marriott (Borachio), Robert Perischini (Dogberry), Bernard Hopkins (Vargas).
Analysis
Stephen Ouimette left the Stratford Festival production of Much Ado About Nothing after its first dress rehearsal, leaving "midwife" directorial control to Marti Maraden. Directorial continuity seems to have had little effect on the production, which plays with an easy smoothness, although perhaps too much so. Rather than a "merry war" with dynamic tension between two mature and sharp-witted intellectuals, the end result is a casual, almost bland romantic situation comedy.
Ouimette sets the play in Sicily at the turn of the twentieth century, thematically the end of a war, the end of a century, and the end of two longtime opponents of romance. The color palette of the costume and set design is muted to near-drabness, with much beige, white, and cream lit within an almost unchanging mid-day brightness. A guitar player and violinist in the balcony lend occasional musical accompaniment, especially during set changes.
A matronly Beatrice begins the play at an easel with a paint brush, shrill and mean-spirited in contrast to the younger women, especially Hero, although she softens - and seems to even sadden a little - as the play progresses and her feelings for Benedick are realized. The subtle change from strident vitriol to demure tenderness is affected with interesting measures of wide-eyed disbelief and a sense of relief and gratitude.
Similarly, the rough-hewn Benedick, battle-weary and wizened, becomes clean-shaven and boyish as his love for Beatrice comes alive. The initial scene between Benedick and Beatrice is something of a cage-match, as they square off at center stage, the rest of the cast stepping aside in bemusement. Afterward, Benedick tries his hand at painting and inadvertently ruins Beatrice's canvas, and in subsequent scenes the crusty Benedick devolves into a schoolboy in the throes of his first crush.
The 2.1 celebration is stiff and stately and seems a requiem for the passing era, the men in tuxedoes, tails and bow ties, and the women in lightly shaded gowns. Brilliant stars shine above, balloon lights are strung at the sides of the stage, and accordian and horn players join the musicians in the balcony for solemn musical accompaniment. The masquerade turns the celebration trivial, not a joyous romp into romance but an adolescent vanity trip. The exchanges are too juvenile for such a mature group of individuals who have triumphed in a war as a century turned, and not profound enough to befit the birth of romantic emotion within Beatrice and Benedick. The players don wonderfully detailed and lifelike animal masks - lamb, rabbit, cat, raccoon, Benedick as a monkey - for the flirting-in-disguise scenes, but the sequences, although well-costumed and handsomely choreographed, are languidly paced, elegant to observe but subdued with a by-the-numbers lack of passion.
Don John wielding a walking stick with a concealed blade and a towering henchman Borachio swigging from a flask only incidentally supply any complications or villainy to the trancelike movement of the play. Dogberry and the watch, however, deliver a welcome but brief 3.3 injection of energy and color, arriving in a rickety old farm truck that belches smoke. The massive-bellied Dogberry towers over his rustic constables, one armed with a pitchfork, another with a spade, and the comic Vargas sports an overcoat and oversized driving goggles.
The usually broadly comic 2.3 eavesdropping scenes are underplayed save for some likeable if subtle acting. Benedick lounges at a bistro table with his feet up on a chair, first in confidence to the audience, then scrambling up to the balcony to peek out among citrus trees as he listens. Beatrice also hides among the lemon trees, but reveals a flash of her old temper, hurling a lemon at the catty Hero and Ursula.
The production ambles toward its happy ending, not so much sleepwalking but moreso simply gliding along with understated and nearly uninspired refinement. The players share a mild laugh at Beatrice's and Benedick's lame efforts at love poems, and amid a typically light musical accompaniment, enjoy a brief dance, with Beatrice and Benedick emerging happy together at last.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.25, No.1, Spring 2007.