STAGE REVIEWS : 2 VERSIONS OF THE BARD : ‘Much Ado About Nothing’

When you have a pair of lovers as waspish, brainy and embattled as Beatrice and Benedick, and you take care to cast the roles with actors who can deliver, you’re halfway home.

At first glance, Christine Ebersole and Paxton Whitehead in the Old Globe’s most recent edition of “Much Ado About Nothing” might seem an iconoclastic pairing, but reservations fall away at the utterance of the first barb. An illogical pair they are--she a tall swan of a woman, towering over much of her Uncle Leonato’s household; he a confirmed, goofy bachelor, well over the age of, uh, 30--but what a real match they become.

From the moment we lay eyes on the idyllic sun-bleached Italian farmhouse provided by designer Richard Seger (it must be Leonato’s country estate on the outskirts of Messina), it is clear that Brian Bedford’s staging is going for a pastoral lyricism as laid-back as a summer vacation. It eschews frenzy in favor of a breezy gentleness set off by the articulate sparring of the reluctant lovers. If there are any fireworks to be had in this production, they supply them.

This tender approach minimizes the peripheral plotting in “Much Ado” that has always seemed an illogical appendage to the sparkling Beatrice and Benedick minuet.

The wooing by Don Pedro (Vaughn Armstrong) of young Hero (Monique Fowler), not for himself but for his officer Claudio (William D. Michie), hardly makes sense in the harsh light of day. (Why can’t Claudio woo her himself?) The presence of the defeated Don John (Kenneth Gray) at his brother’s victory celebration is equally perplexing, and the later subterfuge to which all of them resort to clear the slandered Hero’s name would not have made it past the greenest of dramaturges had the play been written today.

However, Shakespeare’s not here to change it, and directors must find other ways around the plot. Bedford, who has played Benedick, knows where the focus should be placed. In the leisurely pace and the crumbling country setting that he has chosen for the Globe’s outdoor Festival Stage, he accommodates two things at once: a chance to hear the brilliance of the dialogue and a landscape that suggests a twilight zone of the imagination--a place not quite real, where all things become possible and where dancing couples project the continuity of life.

Once you accept this premise, things more or less fall into place. The principal acting is always engaging, with G Wood heading the parade as a genial Leonato, and Tom Lacy, he of the broad gesture, surprisingly restrained (and no less funny) as he delivers Dogberry’s improbable malapropisms.

The beating heart of the production, however, remains our pair of beleaguered lovers: the attractive Ebersole, a quick-witted, well-spoken Beatrice, doubly striking in the vivid and richly textured crinolined gowns designed by Lewis Brown (all his costumes are exquisite)--and Whitehead, our loopy, ever-so-slightly dandified Benedick, no less well decked out in spiffy toy soldier uniforms.

One reservation or much ado about something: With so much emphasis placed on a musical spine (Conrad Susa supplied the dainty waltzes and Ron Cisneros the muted choreography), why are live musicians not there to enhance the magic? With the exception of Balthasar’s a capella singing (Dan Hendrick, in sweet voice), we get recorded sound--and poor recorded sound, at that. It’s a quick way to destroy illusion and the only false note sounded.

‘MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING’ Shakespeare’s comedy presented by the Old Globe Theatre on the Festival Stage, San Diego. Director Brian Bedford. Designer Richard Seger. Costumes Lewis Brown. Lights Kent Dorsey. Music Conrad Susa. Choroegraphy Ron Cisneros. Stage manager Maria Carrera. Assistant stage manager Robert Drake. Cast G Wood, Ron Richards, Christine Ebersole, Monique Fowler, Vaughn Armstrong, Paxton Whitehead, Kenneth Gray, William D. Michie, William Downe, Dierk Torsek, Don Took, Dan Hendrick, Harriet Hall, Joyce O’Connor, Walter Murray, Tom Lacy, Robert Hock, Buddy Zimmer, Henry J. Jordan, Mark Loftis, Jacqueline Antaramian, Tony Mandle, Dorothy Milne, John Navarro. Alternates with “Tartuffe” through Sept. 21 (619-239-2255).