MUCH ADO’S DOGBERRY A LESSON IN SELF-DELUSION
Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is a play about the harm and the good that can come from gossip, rumours and overheard conversations.
Feuding lovers Beatrice and Benedict are tricked into seeing just how much they actually like each other while Claudio is deceived into believing the virtuous Hero is unfaithful.
Villainy is unmasked, the righteous rewarded and lovers wed.
Into this traditional though complicated love story, Shakespeare introduced Dogberry, the chief of the citizen police force who quickly became one of his most beloved clowns. It is Dogberry and his fellow watchman who stumble on the conspiracy to defame Hero and it is Dogberry who gets one of the conspirators to reveal the identity of the master villain.
According to Trevor Rueger, who plays Dogberry in The Shakespeare Company ’s version of Much Ado About Nothing (May 17 to June 2 in the Vertigo Studio Theatre), “it’s by no merit of his own that Dogberry solves the crime. It’s the one time when all his bumbling actually amounts to some good.”
Much Ado About Nothing is set in Italy and Rueger says Shakespeare investigated the Italian comic tradition of Commedia dell’arte to create Dogberry. Commedia dell’arte was a popular slapstick form of clowning and storytelling which used really broad characters such as a lecherous doctor, a bragging soldier and swooning lovers.
“Shakespeare borrowed the character of El Capitano for Dogberry. Like his Italian counterpart, Dogberry believes himself to be of incredibly high status when, in fact, he is the opposite. He has elevated his status in his own eyes and no one has held a mirror up so he can see the truth.
“Dogberry is his own worst obstacle in trying to maintain this status he has created for himself. It’s the same self-deception Frasier lived in for 12 seasons on television. Audiences love Dogberry for the same reason viewers loved Frasier.
There is a certain level of oblivion to these characters. They ’re not blind to the world; they just choose to function in their own world and, for them, it is about winning at all cost.
“In Dogberry’s case, he wants to solve all crime and yet he is just the lowly head of the neighbourhood watch.”
The hilarity increases when Dogberry insists on taking the criminals to court and then decides to prosecute them himself. Even with his savaging of the English language, Dogberry gets the confession needed to expose the villainous plan to discredit Hero.
Rueger says there is much truth in the theatre cliché that drama is easy, but comedy is hard.
“It’s the actor’s job to dig deep and mine the truth in these comic characters. The challenge is to take the truth you find and raise it to an antic level. People laugh because they see glimpses of themselves in these clowns.
“There was a time when I was in my 20s and early 30s that I thought I knew everything. I worked really hard to be the smartest person in the room. It took a friend to tell me I didn’t need to do this to make people like me.”
He says what really helped him tune into the character of Dogberry was the costume devised by Rebecca Toon.
“It’s Italy 1912, just after a conflict between Italy and Libya. As wars go, there wasn’t all that much bloodshed and it was over quickly.
“Rebecca has given Dogberry an old military uniform from an even earlier war he served in. It’s ill-fitting and he prizes his hat with its huge feathers. That costume is going to do a great deal of the work for me.”
The Shakespeare Company’s Much Ado About Nothing is directed by Jan Alexandra Smith, with Myla Southward and Tyrell Crews playing the feuding lovers. Natasha Strickey is the unsuspecting Hero with Mihai Dan as her deluded suitor Claudio, and Conrad Belau as the villain Don John. Rounding out the cast are Joel Cochrane, Meg Farhall, Jesse Lynn Northan, Declan O’Reilly, Roger Leblanc, Armin Karame, Deborah Ferguson and Myron Dearden.
Tickets for Much Ado About Nothing are available at tickets. vertigotheatre.com. All tickets for the May 17 preview are $15.
Performances are 7 p.m. nightly with a 2:30 p.m. matinee on May 20, 27 and June 2.