There is something magical about seeing Shakespeare outdoors on a beautiful summer night.
A large and appreciative audience gathered at Bridgeport’s Beardsley Park Zoo Friday night to see the delightful Connecticut Free Shakespeare production of “Much Ado About Nothing.”
The show started just as daylight was ending and it was wonderful to see the stage lights come up slowly as darkness descended on the park.
Director Ellen Lieberman has given the romantic comedy a very amusing — and provocative — twist by setting the action during the summer of 1973 when the full implications of President Nixon’s Watergate scandal began to emerge during congressional hearings.
In Lieberman’s version, Shakespeare’s free-thinking heroine, Beatrice (Katrina Foy), is part of the exploding feminist revolution of the early 1970s and the equally prickly and independent Benedick (Eric Nyquist) is just returning from a tour of duty in Vietnam.
Thanks to a few revisions in the text, Lieberman deepens the play’s subtext and opens it up to some terrific period musical interludes (supervised by Nyquist who is musical director of “Much Ado” as well as its very appealing male lead).
The beauty and informality of the park setting — with the theatergoers enjoying picnic dinners before the performance — added to the powerfully direct connection between the company of actors and an obviously thrilled audience.
(“Much Ado About Nothing” will be presented this Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. at Beardsley Park and then will move on to the Guilford Green for performances Aug. 6 to 10 at 7:30 p.m. For more information, visit the company website at www.ctfreeshakespeare.org)
