There’s an old theater saying that an actor who overdoes it is “chewing the scenery.” In Catskill Mountain Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” however, little is more diverting than watching the actors play with the furniture.
What begins as a deceptively calm living-room play, with strong whiffs of Chekhov, quickly gives way to something almost ludicrously funny. Director Conner Wilson sets the play in a deliberately nebulous early-20th-century moment, drawing from a ragtime-era lookbook and adding a generous dose of 1920s flapper style. That influence is particularly vivid in the costumes of Louise Sims, who gives a luminous performance as Hero, first much sought after and then wrongly maligned.
After the summer, Wilson will serve as the U.S. associate director of a Broadway production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” starring Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell, this fall. This production is his first with the close-knit Catskill Mountain Shakespeare, founded by Sarah Reny.
“It’s been amazing,” Wilson said. “The group is so welcoming; the region has been so welcoming. Sarah does a great job of integrating the group into the community.”
The production opened July 11 and runs through July 26, with performances Wednesday through Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons beneath the white tent behind the Red Barn, set back from Main Street in Hunter.
Reny said she chose “Much Ado About Nothing” as this year’s main-stage production for two reasons.
“The really practical reason is that I think we all can use a laugh,” Reny said.
She said the comedy gives audiences a chance to step outside themselves. The play’s themes also appealed to her.
“It’s a story of great forgiveness and redemption,” Reny said. “That made it feel like an obvious choice.”
Set in Sicily and first published in 1600, “Much Ado About Nothing” is almost evenly divided between comedy and drama. A mirthful first half, rife with meddling loved ones, will-they-or-won’t-they tension, and a classic Shakespearean masquerade ball, gives way to a frank examination of the harm caused by the disparagement of an innocent woman.
“Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,” one character laments of the heroine called Hero.
At the preview performance, the cast’s commitment to mirth was perhaps most obvious in the sidesplitting, contortionist antics of Ian Maryfield as Benedick and Sydney Berk as Beatrice. Their initial meet-cute is more of a meet-brute, fueled by disdain.
Equally effective are the straight-faced reactions of Tyler Bey, Nick Trotta, Zach Gibson, and Devante Owens. Their delightful, studied insouciance, set against the Looney Tunes physicality around them, creates a contrast that dials the comedy well past 11.One could happily spend an hour watching the subtly comic Bey pat his shirt as though searching for his eyeglasses while Maryfield cantilevers across the stage behind him.
Costume designer Debra Kim Sivigny, who has designed four previous productions of the comedy, said the relaxed early-20th-century mishmash began with one requirement: The story had to follow some kind of conflict. My first question for the director was, ‘So what war?’ We started researching the World War I era, but I wished the women were more progressive.”
That pushed her further into the 1920s and 1930s, a period she drew on for its fashion and advances in women’s suffrage.
Music is neatly woven throughout the show by sound team Lola Basiliere and Mark Mazzarella, from Tic Treitler and Veronica Else’s duet of acoustic-guitar rendition of Shakespeare’s “Sigh No More” to Maryfield’s tearful Billy Joel song at the piano.
Actors wait beneath the tent in the shadow of Hunter Mountain. Roy Gumpel/The Overlook. 
Chekhovian influences abound in the set design for Catskill Mountain Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” featuring actors (from left) Tyler Bey as Claudio, Ian Maryfield as Benedick, Louise Sims as Hero, Nick Trotta as Leonato, Zach Gibson as Don Pedro, and Jordan Mann as the villain Don John. Roy Gumpel/The Overlook. 
Tyler Bey, who plays Claudio, waits offstage during Catskill Mountain Shakespeare’s production of “Much Ado About Nothing.” Roy Gumpel/The Overlook. 
Tic Treitler, the production’s musician and Dogberry, waits offstage in the field behind the Red Barn during Catskill Mountain Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” Roy Gumpel/The Overlook. 
Nick Trotta (left), who plays Leonato, and Devante Owens, who plays Ursula, revel in the masquerade ball’s comic antics. Roy Gumpel/The Overlook. 
Ian Maryfield, who plays Benedick, appears in masquerade-ball attire. Roy Gumpel/The Overlook.
One striking detail that most productions might not labor over is also a standout here: the floor.
Productions at the Red Barn are typically performed at ground level on a thrust stage beneath a tent, leaving nearly the entire set visible. Last year’s Catskill Mountain Shakespeare production of “Romeo and Juliet” took brilliant advantage of that arrangement, transforming Verona into a whimsical cross between a skate park and a lush, green garden.
This year, set designer Patti Panyakaew created an installation-worthy floor of hand-painted trompe l’oeil mosaic tiles. She estimated that she and her crew spent 30 hours working with stencils and brushes.
Berk, whose Beatrice must choose whether to thaw or freeze emotionally, as well as physically in one hilarious comic bit, found the same appeal in the play that Reny did.
“These are people who are having to be brave and make a choice that they are going to try again,” Berk said. She called that “in some ways the bravest thing you can do.”
As Shakespeare himself might say: sigh no more.
Construction on Hunter’s new village firehouse somewhat obscures the field from the road, but a sign marks the entrance. Special events tied to select performances, including the July 17 LGBTQ+ Midsummer Social, are listed on Catskill Mountain Shakespeare’s website.
Lex Sottile is a contributing writer. Send correspondence to reporting@theoverlooknews.com.
