Page 98 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

Sophisticated Comedy I 87

During Beatrice and Benedick's exchange of witticisms, Branagh
recalled beloved verbal bouts between Katharine Hepburn and Spencer
Tracy. Dogberry and the Watch spouting malapropisms brought to
mind the Keystone Kops by way of the Three Stooges. And when the
song "Cry No More, Ladies" appeared, Branagh chuckled about how
charming it might be if presented as a nickelodeon sing-along, with
bouncing ball over the words so that audiences could join in.
When, five years later, Branagh had the opportunity to mount, a
film version, he opted for all of the above. Which explains why he
forsook British stage performers, casting American stars: Denzel
Washington as Don Pedro, Keanu Reeves as Don John, Michael
Keaton as the idiot savant Dogberry, and Robert Sean Leonard as the
handsome, if callow, Claudio. "I always liked the ballsiness of Amer-
ican film acting," Branagh admitted. "The full-blooded abandon.
This play seemed to require it." As for classically trained actors, the
Irish-born director scoffed at their "incomprehensible booming and
fruity-voiced declamation."
American stars were "free of any actory mannerisms and the bag-
gage of strutting and bellowing that accompanies the least effective
Shakespearean performances. . . . We wanted audiences to react to
the story as if it were in the here and now and important to them.
We did not want them to feel they were in some cultural church."
As to Denzel Washington, a black actor in an Anglo role, Branagh
opted for color-blind casting. Washington was the contemporary
actor who struck him as most royal, so that was that.
To achieve a balance between respect for Shakespeare's world-
class words and naturalistic acting, Branagh did keep two assistants
on hand during the lengthy rehearsal process. Russell Jackson, of the
Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, took the responsibility
of making all cast members (particularly the Americans) consciously
aware of when they were speaking prose or poetry, emphasizing the
different demands of each. Hugh Crutwell, former director of the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, assisted every actor in
developing a "back story" to round out the characters into three-
dimensional people rather than presenting waxwork figures in an
old play.
Taking his cue from Shakespeare's anachronistic approach,
Branagh avoided setting his film at any one moment in history. He
opted for an indefinite-past golden age, as we might imagine while
listening to a storyteller relate a tale from "once upon a time." The
"period," if one can call it that, falls somewhere between Shake-