[In the following review, Laws describes how New York's Aquila Theatre Company successfully turned Much Ado about Nothing into a giddy spoof of television's secret agent shows of the 1960s and 1970s.]

Shakespeare's classic insights on true love's weal and woe still prove uncannily accurate whether actors wear tights or no. There was certainly much undone to rev up Much Ado in The Aquila Theatre Company's outrageously premised 2001 touring production. The respected Anglo-American company based at New York University turned the 1599 comedy into a spoof of 1960s-70s TV and film secret agents. Messina becomes Spy-versus-Spy Land; there is little loss of the play's essence in the temporal transfer and a surprising gain in its inherent giddiness (cf. Benedick's “for man is a giddy thing and this is my conclusion” [5.4.108-9]).

Shakespeare's themes of love versus war and love as war are well intact. The recently demobbed Don Pedro, Claudio and Benedick are looking for love in all the right places. Peter Meineck, Aquila's Producing Artistic Director and Robert Richmond, Associate Director and author of this adaptation, give us a rectangle of rope laid on a bare stage to mark the sparring area where this “merry war” (1.1.62) between the sexes takes place. The eight cast members, many doubling or tripling roles, are clad, if female, in skin-tight black shiny vinyl (sort of a James Bond-age look) and, if male, in black bowlers and suits resembling the get-ups of John Steed of TV's 1960s Avengers series. Both sexes spend a lot of time vamping and then freezing in tableaux. They form martial silhouettes of gun-shooters and kung fu fighters against red or blue-lit backgrounds, much in the manner of a Bond film's opening credits. The clue and indeed the glue to the whole stylization is Anthony Cochrane's musical score, full of twanging electric guitar, creeping xylophone and suspenseful bongos. It is derivative of 007 film scores, but that is just the satiric point. Cochrane, who also plays a sturdy Benedick, has composed an up-tempo, danceable version of “Hey nonny nonny” (2.3.62-74) that alone is worth the ticket price.

Robert Richmond's version of the play really lies on the borderline between an adaptation and a heavily cut original text production. Characters entirely cut out include Leonato's brother Antonio, Ursula, and such minor folks as Balthazar the singing attendant and Conrade, one of Don John's henchmen. The low comic crowd has been thinned out to just Dogberry (Louis Butelli imitating Henry Winkler's “the Fonz”) and Verges (Nathan Flower). The duping of Beatrice (Lisa Carter) has been moved from an outdoor bower to an indoor table scene, allowing for some admirably theatrical shtick. The play's cleverest effects are wrought, in fact, with stools, newspapers and expert timing. The tomb song has been cut, a move possibly misguided on Richmond's part, given the play's general tip towards the frivolous. We never really feel Claudio's (Nathan Flower) anguish when his misplaced machismo apparently prompts Hero's (Shirleyann Kaladjian) death. Other cuts include some of the lengthier “quibbles,” to borrow Dr. Johnson's term, plus the removal of lines offensive to the modern ear (e.g., “If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a Jew” [2.3.262-63]). Inevitably, however, when coupled with certain acting decisions, such cuts do take their toll on characterization. Don John, played as a less-than-threatening automaton by Louis Butelli, could and should be much darker. Hero could likewise show more capacity for suffering. Amid the flashing lights of this brightly-colored mod version, we are blinded to the darker elements of Shakespeare's chiaroscuro work.

A welcome exception to the caricaturing of the characters is a Don Pedro (Richard Willis) who suggests the poignancy of being the odd lover out. He must act as a Cyrano wooing Hero for his friend Claudio and we see he could be attracted to Beatrice, were she not already spoken for in the comic dance by her natural partner, sharp-tongued Benedick. While Anthony Cochrane holds his own as Benedick, there is little chemistry between Carter, the best actor in this capable cast, and himself. And given the potential poignancy of Don Pedro being left without a mate, it seems unwise to have him cavorting with sluttish Margaret (Cameron Blair) in the comic finale, a swinging reprise of “Hey nonny nonny.”

What is really gained for the audience in this updating is the fun of catching the rapid, pop cultural allusion. Although Beatrice is no Mrs. Peele (the Avenger immortalized by Diana Rigg), the two women do have their quick wits in common. Both are liberated ladies who naturally come across as shrews to a misogynist. Likewise, Charlie's Angels figures prominently, with the three female actors taking every opportunity to strike a triple Angelic pose. In the masked party scene, the males sport phallic noses reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange. And Alex Webb's (Leonato's) stiff mechanical arm—not very funny here—is arguably borrowed from Kubrick's comedy Dr. Strangelove.

In Aquila's Much Ado, the gain in giddiness seemed worth the loss in darkness and the narrowing of each actor's performance range to fit the cartoonish concept. But that is only so because we have Shakespeare's text to come home to, after all is said and done.