For those of you familiar with Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, the entertaining production finishing this weekend in Inverness stands up nicely to recent more elaborate versions, including the current production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. If you are tempted to take a pass on Shakespeare, especially on a warm summer afternoon on Tomales Bay, you might want to reconsider.
The play is in large part the love story of two smart alecks, Benedick and Beatrice. These marvelous characters, whom Roger Ebert once referred to as “the patron saints of 1930s screwball comedy,” love to hate each other. They trade clever, acidic witticisms and of course, are eventually tricked into admitting true affection, not to say passion, for each other. Shakespeare being in charge here, the play involves some wicked trickery; the sweet, innocent romance between Hero and Claudio is nearly destroyed by the scheming, unhappy Don John. Thank heavens for Dogberry, the linguistically-challenged leader of a night watch, who discovers the plot.
West Marin’s lively production, perhaps playing off the bayside location, trades Shakespeare’s original setting in 16th-century Sicily for the 1960s Italian Riviera. Music groups like The Dixie Cups and The Four Seasons accompany the characters—who first appear on stage in glamorous, brilliantly colored swimwear—through the performance.
The play also benefits from the rediscovery of the outdoor amphitheater carved into the hill at the base of St Columba’s front yard, just off Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. It lay hidden in a tangle of blackberry, poison oak and hemlock, barely touched for decades. Its untapped potential piqued the interest of Sharron Drake, who lives in Inverness Park and recently directed and starred in a production of another play, The Heiress, at the Dance Palace. After friendly negotiations with St. Columba’s, and with the help of a Kickstarter campaign, she rallied locals to clear the site, build a stage and new seating, and construct a set featuring a 1960s Italian villa—complete with a swimming pool. (Sharron herself plays Beatrice.)
Clad in everything from hiking shorts to summer linens, and supplied with beach chairs and blankets and fanny pads, the audience seemed delighted to spend a summer afternoon in the company of friends and neighbors watching talented actors in a great new performance space. Father Robert Weldy, who looked the image of an Elizabethan friar (sunglasses and jeans notwithstanding) opened the proceedings with a warm welcome from the St. Columba community.
Kudos to Sharron, the actors and the many volunteers for the grit, the imagination and the tremendous commitment they made, not only to good theater, but to the rehabilitation of a bright new space that will hopefully accommodate the musical and dramatic talent that seems to be everywhere in our community.
Much Ado About Nothing plays at the amphitheater at St. Columba’s Church in Inverness on Saturday, Sept. 5, and Sunday, Sept. 6, and Monday, Sept. 7. All performances at 2 p.m. For tickets, visit brownpapertickets.com/event/2068181.