"Knight and Ingersoll make Benedick and Beatrice a fiery and unpredictable couple with a wonderful, lively rhythm... him with a manly coolness and her with a liberated playfulness.
-South Bend Tribune
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival
"Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival’s production literally jumps, jives and wails. And not just because of the 1940s-style songs composer Scotty Arnold wrote for the show, which director Drew Fracher has set during World War II. Sure, its athletic cast demonstrates impressive dance skills a number of times, but Fracher’s “Much Ado” has a joyful swing from start to finish that goes well beyond the Lindy Hop.
...It provides an opportunity for Fracher to feature Angela Ingersoll’s powerful voice on several solos as Beatrice and with Celina Dean (Ursula) and Kiah Stern (Hero) in a mellifluous Andrews Sisters-style harmony trio.
Cameron Knight and Angela Ingersoll make Benedick and Beatrice a fiery and unpredictable couple with a wonderful, lively rhythm to their exchanges. Each makes exquisite, often hilarious use of facial expressions and body language and has a commanding stage presence, him with a manly coolness and her with a liberated playfulness.
Further, Fracher’s casting of Knight and Ingersoll as an interracial World War II Benedick and Beatrice — unlikely, at best, in that era — serves as a reminder of how much progress the U.S. has made in race relations despite the recent, disturbing rise in white nationalism.
That gives the play and the production contemporary relevance, but, first and foremost, this is Shakespeare at his toe-tappin’ best."
-South Bend Tribune
