Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.

I've seen some low budget productions of Shakespeare plays that, although not exactly thrilling, were at least good for a laugh. Even some of the comedies have come across that way. And every once in a while - every great once in a while - a low budget production will have a surprise - some particularly effective staging or delightful performance - that makes the whole thing worthwhile. So even though I know that you get what you pay for, I sometimes still go see cheap Shakespeare, hoping for that little surprise.

That's why we went to see Much Ado about Nothing at "Shakespeare in the Vines" last month. "Shakespeare in the Vines" is a summer Shakespeare festival held at a winery in Temecula. They do two plays every summer, and this is their fourth year. I'll admit my expectations were kind of low, but I will also say that I did get a little surprise.

The stage is set at the edge of the vineyard that sponsors the festival, so it makes a pretty nice outdoor spot for putting on a play.

Shakespeare in the Vines

This production of Much Ado about Nothing was updated to modern times, and Don Pedro and his men were coming back from having served in Iraq.

I took notes on my cell phone during the production. I've divided my notes into Good Things, Bad Things, and Indifferent Things, and made a few additional comments after some of them.

Good Things

1. Modern pop music playing before curtain. Some of it I like.

Additional comment: There was actually no curtain.

No curtain

2. Annie Lennox's "Stand by Me" was the first song.

3. Benedick is pretty good!

Additional comment: He's the surprise of the evening. He was a delightful Benedick and he deserved a higher budget production. If everyone had been as good as he was, it would have been a really good show. He sounded like he knew what he was saying, and he made the oh-so-familiar funny lines sound funny still. I laughed.

4. The song before the gulling of Benedick was replaced by Claudio on guitar singing "Save Tonight", accompanied by some fellow on violin.

Additional comment: Not that I'm in favor of replacing the original lyrics, but in this case it worked out all right. After the interlude, Claudio also sang "Horse with No Name", accompanied by himself on guitar, the same fellow on violin, and another guy (was it Benedick? Don Pedro? I can't remember) on bongo drums. At Hero's tomb, Claudio alone with his guitar sang a very emotional rendition of David Gray's "The Other Side", after which he burst into tears. He was quite the singer, and his musical performances were some of the too-few highlights of the evening.

5. The song at the end, as the cast took their bows, was Dave Matthews' "Every Day".

Some of the cast take their bows, except they're not actually bowing here.
Sort of like a curtain call when there is no curtain.

6. There was a cat sitting on a bench onstage during part of the play. He acted like he owned the place.

The acting cat

Bad Things

1. Modern pop music playing before curtain. Some of it I don't like.

2. Hard folding chairs, very uncomfortable. (This is not the fault of the director or cast.)

3. Started 15 minutes late.

4. It smells of rotten grapes. Yes, I know we're at a winery.

5. Leonato is dressed in shorts and an Aloha shirt. Don Pedro and his men are dressed in Marine green cammies and Don John and his men are in Army desert cammies. Claudio's scalp is way too white. I can't believe he's been fighting in Iraq.

Additional comment: There was nothing wrong with the military garb as costuming, but I thought it was kind of weird that all the "good guys" were Marines and all the "bad guys" were Army. Was there a double meaning in that?

6. All the guys look like they have eye liner on.

Additional comment: Maybe they did have it on, but you're not supposed to look like you do. I can still remember my college stage makeup instructor drilling into our heads: "No sharp lines! Fade to infinity! Fade to infinity!!" They could have used her here.

7. Bea keeps fluffing her lines.

Additional comment: Maybe she was just having a bad night, but she also seemed to be lacking in emotional depth. Part of the time she sounded like she didn't understand what she was saying. They skipped the "all mirth and no matter" lines. I was initially disappointed, but considering how Beatrice was doing that night, I decided it was for the best. It hurt me to hear her trample the lines about Benedick lending her his heart a while, and the "what fire is in mine ears" speech, and "I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest". She might as well have been talking about her favorite sandwich condiments for all the feeling I heard in it.

8. Benedick keeps pronouncing "doth" to rhyme with "moth".

Additional comment: He's a drama teacher in real life. He should know better.

9. Bea took Ant's lines when Leo confronts Claudio.

Additional comment: There was no Antonio in this production, so when Leonato confronted Claudio and Don Pedro, Beatrice took Antonio's lines. It made her seem particularly belligerent, and contradicted her earlier speech to Benedick about wishing she were a man and not being able to do anything to Claudio because she was a woman. It was a mistake on the director's part.

Indifferent but Noteworthy

1. At the dance, Benedick disguised himself as Elvis. I don't know why.

2. Don John had a toothpick in his mouth the whole time. I don't know why.

3. Narcoleptic Dogberry

Additional comment: This characterization of Dogberry seems to me to have been taken from Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film of Much Ado about Nothing and then adapted a bit. This Dogberry was more manic but less cruel than Michael Keaton's, and he fell asleep a lot more (too much, if you ask me), and he didn't quite make the most of his lines, but there was some pretty funny business with him and Verges and Borachio that set the audience a-roar with laughter.

I noticed a few other things that I suspect were nicked from Branagh's film, like showing Borachio and Margaret carrying on (although I've seen that in other productions as well), and the reaction of Margaret at the wedding to finding out her part in the plot to discredit Hero, when in the script she doesn't even show up at the wedding. And then there's the switching of scenes 5.2 and 5.3, which makes little sense to me. And here's why:

In 5.1 of the original play, Claudio, Don Pedro, Leonato, et al, discover that Don John is the cause of Claudio's misunderstanding about Hero's supposed guilt, and Leonato tells Claudio that, as part of his penance for causing Hero's death, he should sing a hymn at her tomb. In 5.2, Benedick meets Beatrice to tell her he has challenged Claudio to a duel (neither of them was present at the revelation in 5.1, so neither of them yet knows that Hero has been proven innocent), then Ursula comes running in to tell them that Hero is, indeed, innocent and that the mix-up is all Don John's fault. They then run off with her to the house to hear the whole story. Act 5, scene 3 shows us Claudio and Don Pedro - who still don't know that Hero is not really dead - at Hero's tomb, carrying out the required penance.

In the film, though, 5.3 (Claudio's penance at the tomb) is moved up to before 5.2 (Beatrice and Benedick's discovery that Hero has been proven innocent). Claudio's penance takes place at night, apparently unbeknownst to Beatrice and Benedick. Then, as the sun is coming up and the birds are singing at dawn, Beatrice finds Benedick and they talk briefly about how "ill" Hero is, presumably because of Claudio's unjust accusations against her and her need to still play dead. Suddenly, in runs an excited Ursula eager to share the good news that all's (still?) a big to-do up at the house because Hero is no longer belied. In a filmic sense, I suppose it can be artistically appropriate to have Hero's reputation "resurrected" in the morning after the sorrows of the night at the tomb, but the scene switch is not logical in a temporal sense. I start asking myself, "Why, when they knew Hero was innocent the night before, did they wait until the next day to let Beatrice know?" I mean, Beatrice, who suffered more than anyone besides Hero herself, was the last to find out! And I ask myself, "Did everyone forget about Beatrice in the excitement? Had she hidden herself away because she was depressed and didn't want to talk to anyone and they looked for her but just couldn't find her before the next morning? And why didn't anyone tell Benedick about it either?" And then I start asking myself, "Where were Beatrice and Benedick all this time, that they didn't hear about Borachio's confession and Claudio's repentance?"

Well, these are all questions without answers when you go twisting things around. But back to the play. My overall reaction was that I got what I paid for. And I got that pleasant little surprise.