"Much Ado About Nothing" Extra Credit

I saw the play “Much Ado About Nothing” over the weekend for extra credit. The Re-Theatre company put it on in one of the theatre spaces at PCPA. The Re-Theatre performs the classical version and a modernized version that they wrote themselves. Their rehearsals are improvised and the director re-writes the show based on what he sees in the rehearsals. That’s why they are called Re-Theatre.
I didn’t see the classical version, just the modernized one, and it was amazing. The actors were great and the show was hilarious.
The show was about a wedding. There were the wedding planners, designers, best men, friends, and siblings. There were two love stories that went on throughout the show between Hero and Claudio, and Beatrice and Benedick. The other characters were a lot of the story too, but the main story revolved around the wedding and the love stories. Now the wedding was actually for two characters that were never actually seen in the play, they were just talked about.
The girl that played Hero was perfect for her character; small, cute, somewhat shy, and also a workaholic. Her love interest, Claudio was my favorite. He actually went to SOU with me and was in the children’s show there, and he was great there too. He has the perfect body movement and facial expressions for comedy. The girl who played Beatrice “B” was very good too. She portrayed the wit and stubbornness of her character very well, along with her love interest Benedick “Ben,” who was cast perfectly for his part, but could have downplayed his expressions a little at times.
The guy who played Donnie, was so fun to watch. He was essentially the “cupid” of the story. He was also called, the “love guru.” There was a famous website of his that they would play for us throughout the show where he and his partner would show everyone what and what not to do in order to get a girl.
The character that was very surprising to me was the maid who wasn’t in much of the show the first act, but came in a lot of the second and she was so funny. She played her character so well, and her voice was awesome. She was crazy and portrayed that perfectly.
The show was so much fun, too bad it’s over now because I would tell you all to go.

Heather Harlan