We saw the Whedon Much Ado on impulse yesterday as an early birthday present for T (its run ended that night, so it was right then or wait for the DVD) and it was ADORABLE. Acker and Denisof killed it as you might expect, Lenk ("That's Andrew!"), Diamond and Kranz speak the speech trippingly, Maher ("That's Simon!") is a great Bastard, and while Filion ("That's Mal!") was not actually as howlingly funny as the row of giggling fangirls behind us thought he was, it was cute to hear them get so into Will. (That's what she said.) I'm a Shakespeare snob and hate the pointless Papp-inspired modern "updating" ("Taming of the Shrew -- in the Wild West!") but this just felt right -- simple and stripped-down, despite the big house and beautiful grounds. Even the songs, often stumbling blocks in even period productions, actually work (as they didn't really in the even more hyped-up Tate/Tennant Ado). I'm also just a total sucker for let's-put-on-a-show ambience, especially with Shakespeare, so there you go.
In an interview, Whedon said
....when I started poring over it, I got a very strong sense of how a little bit dark and twisted it is. The movie’s in black-and-white partially because it’s kind of a noir comedy. I realized that everybody in it behaves like such a dolt — an articulate dolt, but a dolt. I fixated on this notion that our ideas of romantic love are created for us by the society around us, and then escape from that is grown-up love, is marriage, is mature love, to escape the ideals of love that we’re supposed to follow.