By
Frank Rich
New York Times
June, 1983
As it happens, one ideal couple for “The Real Thing” can be found at
the Barbican Theater, where the director Terry Hands has mounted an exquisite
“Much Ado About Nothing” with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
As Benedick and Beatrice—two lovers who, like Mr. Stoppard’s, mask
feelings with wit—Derek Jacobi and Sinead Cusack slowly but surely arrive at a
state of rapture that is intoxicating.
Miss Cusack, tomboyish at first, melts into femininity as she moves from
battling her co-star to embracing him. Mr.
Jacobi—generally not the most romantic of leading men—steadily simplifies an
initially broad performance until he seems a shy and kindly paragon of selfless
affection. We feel as if we’re watching Shakespeare’s progressively
more lilting and poetic language purify and reshape Benedick’s soul.
The world in which this pair’s war of words unfolds, designed by Ralph
Koltai, is a Rembrandt-hued box filled with mirrory surfaces, starry nights and
shimmering music (by Nigel Hess). By
the happy ending, all the superfluous furnishings have vanished and the whole
setting seems to twirl in heaven. The audience levitates as well.
This “Much Ado” is one of those rare occasions when, even after the
curtain calls, no one in the theater wants to go home.
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