Canadian Stage’s Shakespeare in High Park summer series, now in its 37th season, has two of the Bard’s classics running in repertory until the end of the summer — Much Ado About Nothing, which is (mostly) a romantic comedy, and Measure For Measure, which is (mostly) a morality play.
Measure is the more unlikely programming for the family-friendly outdoor amphitheatre, and although both shows are entertaining, it’s the more engrossing production too.
Director Severn Thompson’s vision of Measure’s town of Vienna is one of corrupt decay. This is symbolized overtly by the graffitied stage panels and onstage partying that opens the show and, more subtly, by the blotches of grime on the thrust stage and set and the double entendres of its citizens and sex workers.
Duke Vincentio (Allan Louis) is loathe to apply the city’s antiquated morality bylaws to the populace, so he decides to feign an out-of-country trip and hands control of the city to the conservative preacher Angelo (Christopher Morris), who begins a brutal crackdown on the city’s “bawds” and everyday folk, like the young Claudio (Richard Lam) and his already pregnant fiancée Juliet (Emma Ferreria), drawing Claudio’s nun-to-be sister Isabella (Natasha Mumba) out of her monastery to plead for her brother’s release. But the duke has in fact remained in the city, disguised as a priest-confessor, and observing how the crackdown goes awry, begins to plan how to set things right to his satisfaction.
In Liza Balkan’s production of Much Ado, we’re transported back 20 years to 1999 and out of the city to cottage country. Aspiring standup Beatrice (Rose Napoli) mopes around the palatial lake house of her uncle Leonato (Louis) and his virgin daughter Hero (Ferreira). The arrival of Don Peter (Morris), his sibling Don John (Mumba) and his soldiers — among them the passionate Claudio (Emilio Viera) and louche Benedict (Jamie Robinson) — sparks revelry, matchmaking and some less-innocent plotting. But everyone gets a happy ending.
Both shows succeed in large part due to the charisma of their leading ladies. Napoli in Much Ado aptly portrays Beatrice’s withering wit and her poorly concealed optimism, whereas Mumba brings to her role of Isabella the intensity and fervour of her recent turn as a beauty school contestant in the Dora Award–winning School Girls.
Where Thompson’s Measure succeeds is in its thematic cohesion and its editing, as both plays have been trimmed to approximately 90 minutes.
In Much Ado, that means we lose some of Mumba’s equally compelling villain turn as Don John, as well as the comedic stylings of Nora McLellan’s bumbling sheriff Dogberry.
Audiences who trek into the park for the pay-what-you-can shows will enjoy Beatrice and Benedict’s wrangling and some supporting players’ musical gifts, like Richard Lam’s too-brief ukulele serenade as Borachio.
But it is Measure that stuck with us, especially how, at the end, after Allan’s duke has manipulated the players, they all convey a sense of unease at how gleefully he’s exerted his authority.
No character is without flaws in the show, which cunningly references modern movements, such as #MeToo, and that slice of realism with the frothy comedy gives it an edge over its more lighthearted companion play.
The shows run until Sept. 1.