Reviews 2015
Reviews 2015
✭✭✩✩✩
by William Shakespeare, adapted and directed by Richard Rose
Tarragon Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, Toronto
April 29-May 31, 2015
Leonato: “Neighbours, you are tedious”
The Tarragon Theatre concludes its 2014/15 season with a “Bollywood-inspired” adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing set in contemporary Brampton, Ontario. Just because the cast plays characters in an Indo-Canadian enclave in Ontario and just because the show ends with a bhangra-style group dance is not really enough to link the word “Bollywood” to the adaptation. In Bollywood films song and dance punctuate the entire action at times of great emotion and don’t just show up at the conclusion. Although the new production is great to look at, director Richard Rose becomes so preoccupied with the incidentals of his new setting and added gimmicks that he neglects the essential of Shakespeare’s play like characterization and attention to language.
Shakespeare’s play begins with the men of Messina, Sicily, then ruled by Aragon in Spain, returning home from wars against France (1494-1503). Those returning include Benedick, his friend Claudio, Don John and his illegitimate brother and erstwhile enemy Don John. They all stay at the palace of Leonato, Governor of Messina, where Leonato’s brother Antonio and his daughter Hero and niece Beatrice reside.
Rose has not only transferred the action from early Renaissance Messina to modern-day Brampton, but he has changed many of the names. Benedick now becomes Benedict with a “T”, Chief Financial Officer of Bramalea. Claudio unaccountably becomes the Persian Darius, Don Pedro becomes the British Lord Tata and his brother Don John, for unknown reasons, becomes the Italian Jovanni Tata. Leonato becomes Mayor Ranjit of Brampton and Antonio changes sex to become his sister Auntie. Beatrice is now Thara and Hero is Sita. The men return to Brampton from “financial wars” waged in Thornhill. Why they all stay with Ranjit in Brampton when Thornhill is so close is not explained.
The key failure of the production is that none of the characters except for the comic policemen Dogberry (now Dan Singh) and Verges are fully realized. Anusree Roy who plays Thara and Alon Nashman who plays Benedict are both fine actors, yet under Rose’s direction they give no inkling, as they should, that the insults the two trade are really a sign of interest and even attraction. Even when the two declare their love for each other it is not believable. Part of the problem is that Nashman does not play Benedict as a hero returned from “war” but as a kind of clown. He simply seems too dopey for someone as intelligent and cynical as Roy’s Thara even to consider marrying. The other part is that Roy never allows Thara’s pent-ip anger to dissipate so that it never seems she is in love even when the text calls for it.
The parallel plot involving Darius and Sita, is even more ineffective. The role of Sita has been cut so heavily, Sarena Parmar has almost nothing to work with. As Darius, Ali Momen is such a cold fish and speaks Shakespeare so poorly that neither his love for Sita nor is rage over her supposed betrayal seem more than superficial, with no attempt to explore the character to determine why a soldier should be so prone to jealousy.
In contrast, David Adams makes an excellent Mayor Ranjit. he has the right level of gravitas as well as as certain rigidity which helps explain why he would so quickly condemn his daughter. Making Antoni his sister Auntie turns out to be a good idea becauses it make more sense of two adults living together in suburbia. Ellora Patniak is very expressive but Rose has decided that virtually all she says should be spoken in Hindi (with English surtitles), while virtually all that Ranjit says is in English. Since Ranjit and Auntie are siblings close in age, there seems to be no reason for this disparity in home language except that Rose wants it to supply some couleur locale.
A bizarre language disparity also splits the half-brothers Lord Tata played by Kawa Ada and Jovanni Tata played by Salvatore Antonio. Ada is perhaps the best speaker of Shakespeare in the cast and several times one thought he were more suited to Benedict rather than Nashman. Antonio also speaks well and exudes menace, but if Shakespeare provides the character little motivation for villainy, Rose does not help Antonio to find one.
In his direction Rose always emphasizes stage effects over sense. Thus, in the key scene of Benedict’s duping, he has Nashman, hiding behind too small a potted tree, make an entire circuit of Ranjit, Darius and Tata who are speaking about him. We are so preoccupied with the (pointlessly) moving tree that we pay no attention either to what the three men are saying nor to Benedict’s reactions. The duping of Beatrice/Thara is even more ridiculous since Rose has her “hide” in plain sight.
Rose also likes visual joke that have no purpose. The entrance of Borachio (Gugun Deep Singh), here called Dalal, occurs when what we thought was a statue of Krishna in the front yard of Mayor Ranjit comes alive and moves to speak with Jovanni Tata. Were Rose really interested in exploring another culture, he could have used this moment to suggest some sort of divine intervention, but since that intervention is malicious, in Krishna he has chosen the wrong god. Kali would have been more appropriate. As if this were not enough, Rose, to no particular purpose, also makes the unsavoury Dalal a hijra, or transgender person.
In a production fixated on externals, one must admit that the design is beautiful. Michele Tracey has come up with a set that manages to look like the front of an expensive suburban home with pillars on either side of the door and at the same time to suggest a temple. The red and gold saris for the women and the matching sherwani with a pagri and sehra for the groom are gorgeous. Nova Bhattacharya’s final dance of celebration is a delight.
Wonderful as it is to see so many Indo-Canadians on the Tarragon stage, Rose would have done them them a greater service if had bothered to help them make sense of Shakespeare’s play. A Much Ado with no chemistry between either of the two main couples truly is about nothing.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Nova Bhattacharya, Gugun Deep Singh, Ellora Patnaik, Tahirih Vejdani, Sarena Parmar, Anusree Roy, David Adams, Alon Nashman and Ali Momen; Ali Momen, Alon Nashman, Kawa Ada, David Adams and Salvatore Antonio; Anand Rajaram and John Clelland. ©2015 Cylla von Tiedemann.
For tickets, visit http://tarragontheatre.com.
2015-05-05
Much Ado About Nothing