Some Ado About Quite a Lot

By Gerald Clarke

One of Producer Joseph Papp's fondest boasts is that he can bring Shakespeare to TV-- and make people love it. Television needs more such boasters. Last week, in the first of a se ries of plays his New York Shakespeare Festival is producing for CBS, Papp scored a clear triumph.

Much Ado About Nothing is, in the words of Bernard Shaw, "perhaps the most dangerous actor-manager trap in the Shakespearean repertory." It is a comedy wrapped around a tragedy; it demands directors and actors who can be both funny and serious. Yet it can also be-- as this brilliant TV version of the current Broadway production demonstrated--a dazzling reward for actor, manager and audience alike.

Set with happy incongruity in Ted dy Roosevelt's America, this Much Ado was all gingerbread and gingham. Benedick smoked cigars, wore a boater and, as he is played by Sam Waterston, looked like a dyspeptic basset hound.

Beatrice (Kathleen Widdoes) was a budding suffragette who matched wits and, finally, lovers' wiles with Benedick.

Contrasted to their japery was the hearts-and-flowers romance of Claudio (Glenn Walken) and Hero (April Shawhan), who came by love easily-- and lost it just as easily.

As presented by Director A.J. Antoon, the play proved ideal for the small screen. Indeed, the incessant eavesdropping made for intimate scenes of discovered emotion while the plotting was as easy to follow as Mission:

Impossible. With telling closeups, like Faberge-crafted, peekaboo Easter eggs, Antoon created an almost three-dimensional illusion of depth. Like the Faberge egg itself, this Much Ado was a jewel.

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