From Nov. 13 to 16, St Olaf put on a production of Much Ado About Nothing, a Shakspearian comedy that brought the whole house down laughing. The actors’ physical comedy and exquisite line delivery left every throat hoarse from laughing and not an eye dry during the tragic parts of the play.

The cast used the rich language of the play to both enhance the experience, and also to help them perfect their characters throughout rehearsal. Rehearsal for this play started in the beginning of the semester, with auditions kicking off on the first days of school, and rehearsals starting soon after. The actors and actresses worked with their characters, studying them to see where their behavior came from. In an interview with The Olaf Messenger, Annabelle Latino ’27, who played Beatrice, said, “One of my favorite parts of character studies for this play was when we were told to boil down our characters into one word. It really helped us to truly find the dynamics of our characters.”

Fellow cast mate Aidan Busse ’27 also talked in an interview with The Olaf Messenger about the process of working with the director of the play, Elaigwu Ameh, saying, “Ameh is very good at letting the actors he’s picked come up with their own characters and their own fun things in any given scene. He’s a little more hands-off in that way, and our group, I think, responded to that really well and was able to just build all these great characters in that sense.”

This great chemistry with the cast was clear to the audience, with the cast truly living for the laughter of the crowd, but also showing true emotion for each other on stage during heartbreaking scenes like Hero’s death. This made the whole production feel both raw and also a three hour event of joy that kept smiles on the audience’s face.

Along with this wonderful cast, the production design also struck me as incredible. With a 50’s formal costume aesthetic, this play played with the idea of what the perception of perfection looks like, which is a core theme of Much Ado About Nothing. The break between what is real and what isn’t is such a strong part of the play and the costume and set design really helped to cement that.

As a whole, this play showed the great talent and dedication of actors who worked for months to perfect Shakespeare.