Word: leonato
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Bernard Shaw referred to the work as "Much Adoodle-do" and branded it "a shocking bad play." That's going too far. But it is a minor work. Its borrowed main plot is preposterous and flawed; and Shakespeare was pretty careless now and then (twice he even calls for Leonato's wife Innogen to come on stage, though she neither speaks nor is ever spoken to or about...
...tragicomic Claudio-Hero plot is balanced by the high comedy of Beatrice and Benedick and the low comedy of Dogberry and Verges. The evil bastard Don John is a foil to his genial legitimate brother Don Pedro; and these young brothers contrast with the older-generation brothers Antonio and Leonato. Don John's two male attendants (Borachio and Conrade) balance. Hero's female ones (Margaret and Ursula). Claudio and Hero, on one hand, and Beatrice and Benedick, on the other, both find a rocky road to the wedding altar; and the two plots involving these pairs both hinge on deception...
...what can be done by long and dedicated hard work without any pronounced help from lady luck. In the early seasons of the Festival, Colicos was just one of the many actors doing yeoman service in small parts. From Lodovico in Othello, Gratiano in The Merchant of Venice, and Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing, Colicos was advanced to the important supporting roles of Laertes in Hamlet and Lysander in Midsummer Night's Dream. Then, in the final offering of the 1958 season, he was entrusted with the central role of The Winter's Tale. His Leontes was flawed...
...lovely indeed. Her suitor Claudio, in the hands of George Grizzard, is frankly poor; he does not seem to know what he is saying, and cannot approach the classical diction required of a Shakespearean "proper squire." Robert Blackburn is a cheerful Don Pedro; William Swetland is a good enough Leonato; and Sydney Sturgess is comely as the gentlewoman Margaret...
John Colicos is a warm Leonato and Stanley Bell a prim Don Pedro. As Claudio, Richard Easton is better in comic moments than in serious ones; but he is developing nicely as an actor and shows good potential. Hero has little to do but look beautiful, which Lois Nettelton has no trouble in doing. Morris Carnovsky is a delightful Antonio as he hiphops about in a fussy, ineffectual manner...