Shakespeare’s “Much Ado about Nothing” with flappers and gangsters a la Al Capone? Not quite how the Bard imagined it, but his comedy of love and deception transposes easily onto the Jazz age in this production, where the champagne and witticisms flow in equal abundance.

 

At the center of the play are Beatrice and Benedick, each determined to avoid love and remain single at any cost — but no less drawn to spar verbally with one another whenever they meet. Is the deception here self-deception and could the sparring be a sign of mutual attraction? Benedick’s army buddies, Don Pedro and Claudio, decide to find out, and they have no qualms about using outright trickery to play Cupid and bring the unlikely pair together.

 

Meanwhile, Claudio develops romantic problems of his own when the play’s villain, Don John, seems to show him his bride-to-be, Hero, being unfaithful on the night before their wedding. It’s yet more trickery, but before the trick is brought to light by the bumbling police work of Constable Dogberry and the Watch, hearts are broken and a wedding is ruined...Or is it just postponed?