Garden Grove Troupe Shows Off Its Moxie, Once Again

How could anyone not love a theater company whose artistic director strolls on stage for the organization’s biggest single night of the year and declares: “Just remember, I am an ass!”

So what if Tom Bradac was quoting his signature line from the Grove Shakespeare Festival’s recent production of “Much Ado About Nothing”? The man--like his company--has moxie.

The most enduring testimonial to the value of the troupe’s benefit Shakespeare reading Monday night may have been the way it sent the audience into that wordless night--so satisfied and so frustrated.

Frustrated because after hearing the words of Shakespeare--spoken as powerfully, tenderly, hauntingly and eloquently as the six actors did in many short scenes--we in the unwashed masses can feel barely superior to those telltale monkeys who will labor away for eons in a vain bid to type out the Bard’s complete works.

But, at the same time, there was utter satisfaction in those words, and at our great fortune merely to speak English and be able to understand them!

Although film star Kelly McGillis was the big name on the bill, an unexpected treat for those in the audience who might never have attended a Grove production before was the depth of talent among those who shared the stage with her.

There never was a sense that the Grove regulars--Gregory Itzin, Kamella Tate, Carl Reggiardo, Daniel Bryan Cartmell and John Frederick Jones--were present only to fill time between McGillis’ scenes.

And there was barely a trace of the pompous self-congratulation that can make such “worthy causes” something you endure, rather than enjoy, because it’s the right thing to do. True, there may have been a tad more speech-making than necessary opening the program, but after that, all the effort was focused, quite rightly, on the raison d’etre for the evening and the company itself: Shakespeare’s incomparable words and ideas.

The Grove may not hit the bull’s-eye with every production. But after watching its offerings season in and season out for years, here’s one viewer who treasures this little dramatic gold mine tucked away in so unlikely a corner of Orange County.

With humble apologies to the Bard:

Ah, would that all things well-intentioned

Light so sweetly on the ear .