Much Ado About Nothing

Until real-life husband-and-wife Jonno Roberts, as Benedick, and Georgia Hatzis, as Beatrice, start to interact as lovers and potential avengers of the wronged Hero (Winslow Corbett), Ron Daniels' production on the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre stage seems most remarkable for sweet singing and well-danced revelry and for the substantial headgear (designed by Deirdre Clancy) worn by the returning soldiers.

Beyond the four female speaking roles, at Leonato's house many women either sit around, serve, or help to pass the dreary days until the men return. During the opening number, at least seven women sat there, sewing and breaking into a gently melancholic song (composed by Dan Moses Schreier) about love in springtime. But when Don Pedro (Donald Carrier), Benedick, Claudio (Kevin Alan Daniels), and the soldiers arrive, the estate doesn't exactly spring giddily to life (Oh, my God, we all have to fall in love! Now!). Indeed, the gulling of first Benedick, then Beatrice, feels a bit joyless and perfunctory, and we can see the cigarette being put out on Benedick's head a country Messina mile away.

Once the dramatic stakes are upped, however, things get quite a bit more engaging. Roberts' Benedick seems to develop a purpose in life when he can live to serve Beatrice, a far cry from the holey-socked buffoon (nice Salvador Dali mustache) of the early acts who took Beatrice's barbs personally. Hatzis builds the foundation of Beatrice's love in the early scenes. This Beatrice seems far too interested in the man she supposedly disdains and shows a flash of feminist rage at being unable to personally punish Claudio. The later acts are also, alas, the time for ceaseless mugging by an unfunny and falsetto-voiced John Cariani as a Dogberry who gets locked in the holding cell that had previously held the villains. Pity someone lets him out.     

Presented by and at the Old Globe Theater, 1363 Old Globe Way, San Diego. June 29-Sept. 24. Tue.-Sun., 8 p.m., in rotating rep with "Amadeus" and "The Tempest." (619) 234-5623 or www.oldglobe.org.