“Much Ado About Nothing”

Through April 19

Directed by W. Stephen Coleman

Charity… “Much Ado About Nothing”

Through April 19

Directed by W. Stephen Coleman

Charity Randall Theatre

(412) 624-PLAY

1/2

Pitt Rep is finally home.

After a three-year hiatus, the Pitt’s Repertory Theatre has made its return to its main stage in the freshly renovated Charity Randall Theatre. The Friday night premiere of “Much Ado About Nothing” marks the first play in the beautiful new theater.

As if to mirror the unwavering, spare-no-expense devotion to the Charity Randall Theatre, director W. Stephen Coleman has emptied his mental coffers to build the unfailingly rich – and at times, bloated – production of Shakespeare’s most famous comedy.

From the very top of the play to the final lines, the tango figures prominently. In his director’s note, Coleman says that of the many themes woven into “Much Ado” – high and low comic characters, prose, sonnets and dance – the last one really stuck with him while he was planning the production. Six dancers tango their way from scene to scene, which transitions the play from location to location and serves as a distraction when stagehands rotate the giant Italian villa of a set piece around.

Set in Messina, the villa is the home of Leonato, the governor. He keeps a busy household: His daughter Hero, his brother Antonio and his niece Beatrice live in the villa with him and he graciously takes in Don Pedro, the prince of Aragon, and his men – including snarky Benedick and the lovelorn Claudio – who’re returning home from battle. The plot thickens, though, when Don Pedro’s villainous brother Don John arrives and starts making trouble. But remember that “Much Ado” is a comedy, and if you can’t see from the outset everything is going to end all right, obviously, you’ve never seen a play before.

The production is marked by many standout performances. Many of the roles – particularly those of Beatrice (Bryn Jameson, a teaching artist in Pitt’s theater department) and Benedick (another teaching artist, Doug Mertz) – are uniformly well-played. Jameson and Mertz’s snappy, crackly chemistry befits two people who think they’re too smart for each other. Particularly good at allowing the audience to read her face, Pitt junior Marla L. Nathans plays a tragically lovely Hero. Finally, senior Matthew Gaydos portrays a dashing, hunky Don Pedro. During the masked ball, Don Pedro suddenly asks Beatrice to marry him. Gaydos blends vulnerability and regal confidence, and it’s impossible for any woman in the audience not to want to sigh, “Oh, all right.”

The secondary roles are well played, too. E. Bruce Hill offers a hilariously over the top performance as Dogberry, the constable, and his stable of watchmen, led by junior Michael Cunningham do, too. Robert C.T. Steele is devious as Don John and his comrades Borachio and Conrade are played by identical twins Adam and Brian Hinkle. It goes without saying, of course, that twins equal comedy.

The costumes, designed by Don Mangone, are exquisite. All the women look smashing in their floaty late ’30s dresses and the men have been handsomely clothed in suits and beautifully detailed military garb. The music, played live by Stephen P. Pellegrino and Leonardo Pellegrino on accordion and clarinet respectively, fits the relaxed mood of an Italian villa in summertime.

But despite Coleman’s best intentions, the tango conceit and the intrusions of Dogberry and his guards drag down the play. Though the tango looks sexy and Dogberry and his men traipsing through the theater helps to link together unrelated scenes, they ultimately take up too much time onstage when the audience just wants to get to the adorable, inevitable conclusion.