By Robert Crew for The Star (Toronto), 1 May 2014
There comes a time when you think you have seen enough versions of a particular play and Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing would be high on my list.
Richard Rose’s radical reimagining of Much Ado, now at Tarragon Theatre, proves me wrong.
With the help of consulting director Ravi Jain, choreographer Nova Bhattacharya and cultural consultant Sharada Eswar, Rose has moved the play from the 16th century to the 21st, from England (posing as Messina, Sicily) to downtown Brampton, Ont.
This is not a superficial Bollywoodization of Shakespeare’s familiar tale; it is an attempt — and, by and large, a successful one — to dig deep and see how another culture might respond to the drama that unfolds.
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