Regardless of the title, opening night for one of William Shakespeare's most endearing love stories was anything but "about nothing".
Queensland's Theatre Company's Jason Klarwein made of this tale a memorable laugh. A tryst of contemporised performances by Tama Matheson as Don Pedro, Hugh Parker as Benedick and (steal of the night) Christen O'Leary as Beatrice — with her unsheathed wit thrust outwardly in brash, ocker strokes of comedy — led a cast not soon to be silenced as they begin a run of shows at QPAC's Playhouse.
After the second act, the tone of the modern paintjob is realised when the interior rotates to exterior providing a rendition of Outkast's Hey Ya! to which the cast proclaims "Ice cold!" Perhaps the loudest roar of laughter is delivered after the midway interval opens to the night constables Dogberry (Liz Buchanan) and Verges (Megan Shorey) rocking beats in a golf buggy, their bantering of numerous malapropisms over the play's meddlesome notings. These, such shallow fools, as Borachio described them, brought breadth of comedy to new heights in this interpretation of Much Ado About Nothing. Adding to this, the fourth wall is broken and the audience brought in, with near misses from golf swings. But overall it is the courtship dialogue between Beatrice and Benedick that wins us over, both inside the story and on this production's stage.
