Classic, comic love story gets a Latin twist.

Byline: The Register-Guard

`Battling lovers'' Benedick and Beatrice will thrust and parry wittily as they always do in William Shakespeare's comedy ``Much Ado About Nothing,'' which opens Friday at the University of Oregon. But this time, they'll do so over a soundtrack that includes ``nouveau flamenco'' and other Spanish/Latin music, including tango and a little salsa.

Director Bob Barton got the idea while watching something with flamenco in it.

"It's so flamboyant and competitive," he said, "really good music for Beatrice and Benedick."

Unlike Kate and Petruchio in "The Taming of the Shrew," whose combat is more physical, Beatrice and Benedick are two fun-loving cynics who incessantly attack each other in a war of witty insults until others set in motion a merry plot to convince them that each is the object of the other's secret passion.

A more serious plot line involves Hero, a virtuous maiden who is falsely accused of promiscuous behavior on her wedding day and "dies" of grief while her defenders work to restore her good name and reputation.

In the end, it all proves to be much ado about nothing, and the play ends with a double wedding, proving that "the course of true love never did run smooth."

"This play provides many roles for young actors, which the University Theatre has in abundance, and the central romance resonates with those who have stumbled and even limped to love," Barton says. "The script is sometimes startlingly contemporary, particularly in its portrayal of how characters' defenses and neuroses can prevent them from open and honest communication."

Barton says that the production team created "an irresistible fantasy of the place European people in the last century would have chosen for vacations ... We have hot Spanish music and dance, an attitude carried into the encounters of characters.''

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Boldfaceand this is light text and this is more light text Chris Hirsh and Sarah Griner play Benedick and Beatrice, the sharp-tongued unlikely lovers who fall for each other in University Theatre's "Much Ado About Nothing."