When we spoke earlier this summer to director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall, we discussed that she also had some Shakespeare on her plans for this year. That production is the Old Globe’s Much Ado About Nothing. Marshall’s take on the play opened over the weekend and will run through September 16th at the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre in San Diego.
In Much Ado About Nothing, it is clear to everyone that Benedick and Beatrice are destined to be a couple. The only problem is the two people who can’t see that at all: Benedick and Beatrice. Michael Hayden (perhaps best known for his performance as Billy Bigelow in Carousel) and Sara Topham (who recently appeared in the 2018 revival of Travesties on Broadway) play the couple you know will end up together by the end of the play. After all, isn’t their hostility towards each other really much ado about nothing?
Marshall finds parallels between Shakespeare and the musicals she is most closely associated with. “Even though it’s a comedy, Shakespeare’s plays behave like musicals. There are multiple storylines and characters and you have to keep those balls in the air. You have scene changes and transitions – usually involving music. There’s a song in Much Ado, there’s a scene in masks at a ball and it ends at a dance. It’s funny that it behaves like a musical. I was an English Literature major in college. I love that!”
Photo by Jim Cox