Burnishing the Bard
September 9, 2002 | 12:00am
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never:
Then sigh not so, but let them go
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
These lines from a madrigal are sung by Balthazar in William Shakespeare’s comedy, Much Ado About Nothing. It is fairly certain that the play was performed before Queen Elizabeth who must have been quite delighted but we cannot assume that this little ditty about the faithlessness of lovers was the reason why she remained a virgin all her life. She had many suitors, to be sure, for who among her nobles would not aspire to be her consort? It is doubtful, however, if anyone of them she allowed to lay hands under her layers upon layers of petticoat. She was not like Catherine of Russia of whom it was whispered that she was Catherine the Queen by day and Catherine the Great by night.
The games of love and courtship that men and women play are the subject of Repertory Philippine’s current attraction at the William J. Shaw Theater, Shangri-La Plaza Mall. Director Zeneida Amador has assembled a young cast of talents for Much Ado About Nothing, the third offering in Rep’s 65th season.
The plot centers around two pairs of lovers – Claudio (Rem Zamora) and Hero (Liesl Batucan alternating with Ana Abad Santos-Bitong) and Benedick (Joel Trinidad) and Beatrice (Ana alternating with Liesl).
Fresh from his victory in the battlefield, Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon (Jeremy Domingo), visits an old friend, Leonato, Governor of Messina (Arnel Carrion). With the affable prince are his evil step-brother, Don John (Raul Montesa), whom he has pardoned after hatching an unsuccessful revolt against him, and two of his most valiant officers, Claudio, a young lord of Florence, and Benedick, a young lord of Padua. The war-weary visitors are welcomed by the Governor, his brother, Antonio (George Ramos), his daughter, Hero, and his niece, Beatrice. Leonato arranges a masquerade ball to entertain his guests during which Don John, with the aid of his henchmen, Borrachio (Adrian Flor) and Conrad (Oneill Torres), plot to sow mischief.
The plot thickens as Don John spins a web of intrigue to snare his foes. His initial scheme to discredit Don Pedro in the eyes of Claudio, by insinuating that the prince wants Hero for himself, fails when the Prince himself turns out to be, in truth, a matchmaker between the youth and the maiden.
Indefatigable Cupid that he is, Don Pedro also aims his arrows at the most seemingly mismatched pair – Benedick and Beatrice. Verbal duelists of long standing, the two can only display disdain for one another. And here, the Bard of Avon outdoes himself in exhausting the limits of language when he makes the antagonists clash with verbal lances tipped with the venom of insult and irony.
It is this apparent disdain that Don Pedro has to unmask to expose the real feelings underneath, and he has to enlist everyone – Leonato, Antonio, Claudio, and Hero and her attendants, Margaret (Jennifer Jamora) and Ursula (Shiela Valderama) – to make certain that his machinations succeed.
In the meantime, Don John stages his most devilish plot and his victim is the sweetest and purest and most angelic of God’s creation – Hero. He assigns his cohorts, Borrachio, to stage a secret tryst in the dead of night with Margaret such that Don Pedro himself is led to believe that it is Hero herself in an assignation with a secret lover. In the church the following day, all hell breaks loose when Claudio repudiates his bride as a strumpet. In utter confusion, Hero collapses in a dead faint. Leonato is overcome with shame. In the midst of the mayhem, Don John gloats over his success but the level-headed Friar Francis (Oliver Usison) suspects the real culprit and plots his exposure.
The pathos of this dramatic interlude intensifies the comic resolution to the conflict.
The denouement comes from the most unexpected quarters – the nit-witted constable, Dogberry (Topper Fabregas), and his watchmen (Jejie Esguerra and Paolo Ocampo) who had overheard the drunken Borrachio bragging about his part in the execution of Don John’s schemes.
The title of the comedy says it all: Much Ado About Nothing. Couldn’t All’s Well That Ends Well do just as well?
In her Director’s Notes, Amador states: "We have edited the script, doing away with the more difficult literary allusions and many of the Elizabethan conceits that might not effectively reach out to today’s modern audiences. However, we have kept the spirit of the story very much alive. We have kept the romance, the humor, and the clever wit."
This explanation should justify Amador’s decision to pare down the play to a running time of one hour and forty-five minutes including intermission take away a second or two, and excise Balthazar’s song from her production. Purists may find a reason to gripe but not the schoolmasters who will herd their students to the theater because they know that the young Filipinos of today have a lamentable grasp of the Queen’s English and a very short attention span. They will say – those who are assigned to teach Shakespearean drama – that a Shakespeare abbreviated is better than no Shakespeare at all, as a dressed chicken, all gutted and shorn of its feathers, is ready for the roasting.
The teacher who elects to keep his class in the classroom and show the Kenneth Branagh movie can claim that the film which stars Branagh himself along with Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves and Michael Keaton will serve his purpose perfectly well; that measure for measure, the Rep production is no match.
True, Joel is no Kenneth, Ana is no Emma, Jeremy is no Denzel, Raul is no Keanu, and Topper is no Michael, to be sure, but these screen greats are mere lights and shadows on a TV screen whereas Rep’s players are on the stage in the flesh. In the experience of drama, there is no substitute for immediacy.
If Baby Barredo’s costumes and Miguel Faustmann’s multi-layered set conjure the sun-drenched Mediterranean, these are intentional. It is a conspiracy with their doyen-director to play Cupid, bring young hearts together and make sure that love’s labor is not lost.
By my troth, this Much Ado About Nothing is definitely as you like it!
For comments, write to jessqcruz@hot mail.com.
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never:
Then sigh not so, but let them go
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
These lines from a madrigal are sung by Balthazar in William Shakespeare’s comedy, Much Ado About Nothing. It is fairly certain that the play was performed before Queen Elizabeth who must have been quite delighted but we cannot assume that this little ditty about the faithlessness of lovers was the reason why she remained a virgin all her life. She had many suitors, to be sure, for who among her nobles would not aspire to be her consort? It is doubtful, however, if anyone of them she allowed to lay hands under her layers upon layers of petticoat. She was not like Catherine of Russia of whom it was whispered that she was Catherine the Queen by day and Catherine the Great by night.
The games of love and courtship that men and women play are the subject of Repertory Philippine’s current attraction at the William J. Shaw Theater, Shangri-La Plaza Mall. Director Zeneida Amador has assembled a young cast of talents for Much Ado About Nothing, the third offering in Rep’s 65th season.
The plot centers around two pairs of lovers – Claudio (Rem Zamora) and Hero (Liesl Batucan alternating with Ana Abad Santos-Bitong) and Benedick (Joel Trinidad) and Beatrice (Ana alternating with Liesl).
Fresh from his victory in the battlefield, Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon (Jeremy Domingo), visits an old friend, Leonato, Governor of Messina (Arnel Carrion). With the affable prince are his evil step-brother, Don John (Raul Montesa), whom he has pardoned after hatching an unsuccessful revolt against him, and two of his most valiant officers, Claudio, a young lord of Florence, and Benedick, a young lord of Padua. The war-weary visitors are welcomed by the Governor, his brother, Antonio (George Ramos), his daughter, Hero, and his niece, Beatrice. Leonato arranges a masquerade ball to entertain his guests during which Don John, with the aid of his henchmen, Borrachio (Adrian Flor) and Conrad (Oneill Torres), plot to sow mischief.
The plot thickens as Don John spins a web of intrigue to snare his foes. His initial scheme to discredit Don Pedro in the eyes of Claudio, by insinuating that the prince wants Hero for himself, fails when the Prince himself turns out to be, in truth, a matchmaker between the youth and the maiden.
Indefatigable Cupid that he is, Don Pedro also aims his arrows at the most seemingly mismatched pair – Benedick and Beatrice. Verbal duelists of long standing, the two can only display disdain for one another. And here, the Bard of Avon outdoes himself in exhausting the limits of language when he makes the antagonists clash with verbal lances tipped with the venom of insult and irony.
It is this apparent disdain that Don Pedro has to unmask to expose the real feelings underneath, and he has to enlist everyone – Leonato, Antonio, Claudio, and Hero and her attendants, Margaret (Jennifer Jamora) and Ursula (Shiela Valderama) – to make certain that his machinations succeed.
In the meantime, Don John stages his most devilish plot and his victim is the sweetest and purest and most angelic of God’s creation – Hero. He assigns his cohorts, Borrachio, to stage a secret tryst in the dead of night with Margaret such that Don Pedro himself is led to believe that it is Hero herself in an assignation with a secret lover. In the church the following day, all hell breaks loose when Claudio repudiates his bride as a strumpet. In utter confusion, Hero collapses in a dead faint. Leonato is overcome with shame. In the midst of the mayhem, Don John gloats over his success but the level-headed Friar Francis (Oliver Usison) suspects the real culprit and plots his exposure.
The pathos of this dramatic interlude intensifies the comic resolution to the conflict.
The denouement comes from the most unexpected quarters – the nit-witted constable, Dogberry (Topper Fabregas), and his watchmen (Jejie Esguerra and Paolo Ocampo) who had overheard the drunken Borrachio bragging about his part in the execution of Don John’s schemes.
The title of the comedy says it all: Much Ado About Nothing. Couldn’t All’s Well That Ends Well do just as well?
In her Director’s Notes, Amador states: "We have edited the script, doing away with the more difficult literary allusions and many of the Elizabethan conceits that might not effectively reach out to today’s modern audiences. However, we have kept the spirit of the story very much alive. We have kept the romance, the humor, and the clever wit."
This explanation should justify Amador’s decision to pare down the play to a running time of one hour and forty-five minutes including intermission take away a second or two, and excise Balthazar’s song from her production. Purists may find a reason to gripe but not the schoolmasters who will herd their students to the theater because they know that the young Filipinos of today have a lamentable grasp of the Queen’s English and a very short attention span. They will say – those who are assigned to teach Shakespearean drama – that a Shakespeare abbreviated is better than no Shakespeare at all, as a dressed chicken, all gutted and shorn of its feathers, is ready for the roasting.
The teacher who elects to keep his class in the classroom and show the Kenneth Branagh movie can claim that the film which stars Branagh himself along with Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves and Michael Keaton will serve his purpose perfectly well; that measure for measure, the Rep production is no match.
True, Joel is no Kenneth, Ana is no Emma, Jeremy is no Denzel, Raul is no Keanu, and Topper is no Michael, to be sure, but these screen greats are mere lights and shadows on a TV screen whereas Rep’s players are on the stage in the flesh. In the experience of drama, there is no substitute for immediacy.
If Baby Barredo’s costumes and Miguel Faustmann’s multi-layered set conjure the sun-drenched Mediterranean, these are intentional. It is a conspiracy with their doyen-director to play Cupid, bring young hearts together and make sure that love’s labor is not lost.
By my troth, this Much Ado About Nothing is definitely as you like it!
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