Nothing doing Trinity Summer Shakespeare’s Ado BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

Much Ado About Nothing would, in fact, have made a good Seinfeld episode. Shakespeare was interested in absurdities that were ordinary, everyday confusions with consequences that got wildly out of hand.

The two potential lovers of the subplot don’t know their own minds, so it takes a practical joke to get them together. The central couple of the main story practically have bluebirds twittering about their heads, until a bad guy foments jealousy to calamitous effect.

The silly story has been entertaining us simple-hearted theatergoers for centuries, but when done well it’s a harder comedy to pull off than it seems. Unfortunately, the current Trinity Summer Shakespeare Project rendition of the classic just isn’t ready for prime time, despite the energetic efforts of its young cast, who certainly got their acts together with a second play touring the state this summer. That one amazingly finesses the potential boredom inherent in Richard III, an historical drama stuffed like a sausage with news of off-stage battles and names, names, names.

One thing that worked to the advantage of the verbose latter play was the need to condense a three-hour work into 90 minutes. Trinity does that with Shakespeare every summer, bearing in mind the brain-addling ingredients in our sunscreen. But the abridgement wasn’t done as thoughtfully with Much Ado. At a couple of points, helpful or even needed information is leapt over, and shifts in tone could give a viewer cerebral whiplash.

First, a refresher on the story. It takes place in Italy, where nobleman Leonato (Brian Platt) is governor of Messina and whose daughter is Hero (Niambi Nataki). Falling in love with her — a reciprocal activity before the play begins — is Claudio (Sean McConaghy), a hot-tempered soldier who has returned to the city after winning fame in recent wars. His friend Benedick (Noah Brady) and her cousin Beatrice (Mariah Sage Leeds) are both quite antagonistic toward the opposite sex — so, of course, their friends plot to convince each that the other is in love with them.

The roller-coaster relationship between Beatrice and Benedick keeps the comical heart of Much Ado ticking agreeably in this production. She would "rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me," Leeds convinces us. Brady well conveys the swaggering attitude that has kept the brothels sufficient for Benedick until this point. But when he tells Beatrice that he wishes his horse had the speed of her tongue, he does so with admiration rather than sarcasm, planting the plausibility of the soldier later converting into a simpering swain.

The foolish constable Dogberry (Andy Grotelueschen) is a harder role to make convincing than you might think. Even Michael Keaton’s rendition in the Kenneth Branagh film, which Grotelueschen appears to have modeled his gruff voice after, couldn’t find a clear path through the puffed-up character’s confusing mental maze. But the actor helps us enjoy the malapropisms Dogberry spouts ("comprehend" for "apprehend," "odorous" for "odious"), and he always has straight-man sidekick Borachio (Ben Steinfeld) to fall back upon, literally if necessary, when there are opportunities to physicalize the comedy.

The main disappointment with this Much Ado has to do with a zinger of a challenge that Shakespeare posed for productions. He inserted a potential tragedy between comedic bookends. For the villainous Don John (Grotelueschen) has made it appear that innocent Hero, rather than her servant, has had a man spend the night in her room. Claudio accuses and abandons her at the altar, and a false death has to be contrived to make him feel sufficiently repentant at the end about having been taken in.

But in order for that jarring plot shift to have the desired impact on us — and the resolution can pack a wonderful little melodramatic punch — we need every scene that takes us up to and away from Hero being framed as unfaithful. To empathize, we have to have more than 50 percent of what the playwright made available for this abridged version, concerning how the scandal affected participants.

As it is, that plot strand whips about like a snapped electric line, sparking here and there but never powering the story. Elsewhere the actors sometimes flounder as well, with random bits of stage business that don’t quite work, such as when Dogberry torments a prisoner by persistently squirting him with water.

Like comedy itself, Shakespeare looks easy when done right. This troubled staging of Much Ado About Nothing is quite instructive, reminding us of how many pitfalls stand in the way of successful productions.