[In the following excerpt, Marks reviews the 1998 Stratford Festival production of Much Ado about Nothing at New York's City Center. Marks contends that the production was unremarkable and “short on laughs.”]

The curtain rose at 7:40, but the Stratford Festival did not unveil its capabilities until an hour later.

The moment of revelation came when William Hutt, the celebrated Canadian company's Old Reliable, an actor in his late 70's with the savoir-faire that comes with age, made the force of his presence felt in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. The troupe has brought the play to City Center for a two-week run in repertory with its production of Moliere's Miser.

Mr. Hutt, portraying Leonato, father to Hero, the ingénue, and uncle to Beatrice, the sharp-tongued cynic, steals an inherently funny drinking scene with his descent into good-natured inebriation. Dangling a martini glass, Mr. Hutt turns the leonine patriarch into a figure out of Noël Coward, supplying dry-as-vermouth commentary as the other men spin lies about the love Beatrice (played by Martha Henry) has for Benedick (Brian Bedford), all of which Benedick overhears while hiding behind a plant.

The scene is so effortlessly charming, and Mr. Hutt so delightfully lightheaded, that you wouldn't mind if someone turned off the play and allowed the banter to go on and on. The trouble is that once the scene ends, the party is essentially over. Its conclusion marks the passing of the only truly sparkling encounter all evening.

The Stratford Festival, which draws tourists and rabid theatergoers to a small town in Ontario for an immersion in the work of Shakespeare and other old hands, has come to City Center with a sampling on the first of what it hopes will be an annual occasions. The company, quite sensibly, arrived in New York, where the classics only sporadically enthrall the hometown crowds, with a pair of audience-pleasing comedies by dead playwrights with whom the ensemble is nonetheless on intimate terms.

Surprisingly, the shows are short on laughs and long on—well, they're just kind of long. Based on the dubious rewards, potential ticket buyers might be better served by waiting to see what Stratford plans for next year.

These are technically proficient productions, directed by Stratford's artistic director, Richard Monette, but without virtually any remarkable aspects, from the sterile sets by Guido Tondino and Mérédith Caron to unappealing costumes by Ms. Caron and Ann Curtis.

Though there are nimble performances by a few of the older actors, like Mr. Hutt (in both plays, but more memorable in Much Ado) and the always resourceful Mr. Bedford (also in Much Ado), the level of performance is for the most part standard issue, especially among the younger players. The overall impression is of a Much Ado ultimately thwarted by odd casting decisions and a Miser undermined by a precious and debilitating concept.

Mr. Monette's modern, cosmopolitan Much Ado is the livelier of the evenings. The setting is the Italian seacoast just as World War I is ending, in Leonato's luxurious palace, where the fellow at the baby grand plays music inspired by Gershwin.

The play takes place at what would have to be twilight. As portrayed by the mature Ms. Henry and Mr. Bedford, the old antagonists are a lot older here than audiences are used to. This is a cooler, sexually mellower sparring match, between an unregenerate spinster and a confirmed bachelor. But age is not really the confounding characteristic. In fact, the line readings have a nice twist in this On Golden Pond pairing. “My dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?” Mr. Bedford, in ascot and whiskers, sneers at Ms. Henry, whose casual retort, “I know you of old,” sounds more like an insult than an observation.

The severe-looking Ms. Henry, playing Beatrice as a kind of bookish smarty pants, is best in the early scenes, when Beatrice is at her most smug. But the badinage goes nowhere. Dressed in what look like outfits from the Queen Elizabeth II Reject Shop—check out the ghastly kimono and cap she wears in the wedding scene—Ms. Henry reveals little affinity for Mr. Bedford. That they end up together seems a random result. In another break with tradition, the audience is not actively engaged in the rooting for their union. Whatever happens to them, you're reasonably certain that these two survivors will, indeed, survive.

Surrounding the two leads are an assortment of supporting players, only a few of whom, like James Blendick as Don Pedro, are more than satisfactory. Tom McCamus's villainous Don John is a blank in black, and the overdone Dogberry of Stephen Ouimette should be wearing a sign that says, “Look at me, I'm funny.” …