REVIEW: Dundas Little Theatre stages fresh take on Shakespeare

Eighties-inspired Much Ado About Nothing shifts comedy to a corporate setting, led by a talented and diverse cast and imaginative set and costumes.

For another two weekends, Dundas Little Theatre is presenting one of William Shakespeare’s comedies, Much Ado About Nothing, in a truly inclusive production with a large, spirited, and dedicated ensemble.

As a high-schooler, I came to recognize the importance of seeing Shakespeare performed live, not just read quietly or even spoken out loud in a classroom. I had the privilege of travelling with my fellow students on several field trips to Stratford to see Shakespearean plays staged, and on stage is where the wit and pathos and humour of the Bard is truly revealed. You don’t have to understand every word, and I certainly have never caught everything but still was able to understand through the rhythm and flow of the dialogue, the movement, the context and the emotion, the story that was being revealed.

Much Ado About Nothing features two pairs of potential lovers, Benedick and Beatrice and Hero and Claudio. There is banter and bickering, wisecracks and puns, trickery afoot and misunderstandings galore as the former (reluctant) couple is gradually cajoled into love and the latter (sweet, hopeful) couple faces seeming betrayal and tragedy. This production reimagines the play as taking place not in Messina, Italy but at the offices of Messina, Inc. It’s a place of networking among ambitious colleagues and corporate as well as romantic mergers.

One of the greatest strengths of the Dundas Little Theatre production lies in the diversity of its cast. Younger and older, tall and small, those of various gender, mobility, and racialized groups; all were represented and yet the actors did not seem chosen according to any predetermined list or to tick any box. Each actor embodied their character without exposition or subtext. A typically male character might be played by a woman, a non-binary person, or a man. The actor playing Hero was using a wheelchair, and it was unremarked upon. It simply WAS. It was delicious to see all sorts of people treading the boards. A company of actors echoing…life. Just real life, made up of a variety of people. One could easily see a current young person, new to theatre, seeing someone on stage they could personally relate to, and how exciting is that prospect?

This is truly an ensemble piece where every actor carries their portion of the story. Tina Aurora’s Beatrice is suitably self-possessed and tart of tongue; Muneer Malik-Noor as Benedick has natural flair for comedy and his devil-may-care banter as a confident and commitment-shy bachelor is as familiar in 2025 as it would have been in 1600. I hope to see more of both of them in local productions. 

Michael Hannigan (Leonato) and Aimee Kessler Evans (Don Pedro) turn in the kind of solid performances I have come to expect from such seasoned performers, and I suspect that director Jared Lenover knew the power these two would have in setting tone and subtly providing “trail markers” within their performances for the rest of the cast, particularly those newer to the stage.

My companion for this play, the parent of her own creative young adult, was eager to point out that Dogberry (Bianca Aquilina) was portrayed by an actor of just 15 years old from Glendale Secondary School. A fearless Aquilina more than holds her own in scenes with actors of decades more theatre experience like Hannigan and George Thomas (as a crowd-pleasing and frankly adorable Verges).

I also noticed Kevin Archibald (Friar Francis) had a lovely, clear delivery of the text and a warm humour in his portrayal of the cleric who proposes a line of action to untangle the mess between Claudio and poor Hero. I was surprised and delighted to see that this was actually his acting debut. Bravo!

As someone who grew up through the ’80s and has come to value that experience more and more as the years go on, I was excited by all of the eighties-themed promotional images, set design and costuming for DLT’s Much Ado About Nothing. The fluorescent pinks and greens and yellows twigged nostalgic parts of my brain. Artistic director Chris Farias has designed an understated set of painted cubes and benches that are reconfigured seamlessly by the cast as the play moves from scene to scene. There’s a central watercooler that bubbles as a humorous device to punctuate the action. What I loved most of all is that the set is arranged so as to be fully and quietly accessible for actor Ellis Ritz (Hero) to be able to use every corner of the stage. Well done.

An enormous amount of effort and craftsmanship has obviously gone into the neon-adorned costumes, thanks to the talented Jane Snider and her crew manifesting Farias’ vision. And what’s more eighties-inspired than a choreographed dance number (or two) and Balthasar (Andy Black) evoking John Cusack in 1989’s Say Anything, serenading the audience while holding aloft a boombox. The program does indicate that while the setting is ’80s-inspired, it is “historically ambiguous,” which allows for the inclusion of technologies (social media) that are not, strictly speaking, of the era.

For me, the corporate premise of Messina, Inc. becomes a bit flimsy as the story moves into Act 2. Without the watercooler, the social media posts flashing up on a screen, and the odd modern word, there isn’t much to remind us of modern corporate mergers rather than the original setting by the play’s end. I kept thinking that the watercooler was going to feature in one big, culminating gag, which never actually happened. Something I might gently recommend is to make font sizes larger on some of the funny social media posts as there was material I missed from the fourth row even with my progressive lenses.

The play feels fairly lengthy over two acts, so be sure to move around during the intermission to avoid your energy flagging or body parts getting numb by the show’s end.

NEED TO KNOW

Much Ado About Nothing
Dundas Little Theatre
Garstin Centre for the Arts
37 Market St. S., Dundas
Continuing Jan. 31 & Feb. 1, 7 & 8, 8 p.m.
and Feb. 2 & 9, 2 p.m. (matinees)
Tickets: $25 (general admission); students & seniors: $20 matinee tickets with I.D.
Box office: 905-627-5266 or online