Much Ado About Nothing

[osprey_archer]

troisoiseaux recommended the National Theater Much Ado about Nothing, and as I’m absolutely weak this play I had to see it.

My history with Much Ado about Nothing begins with Kenneth Branagh’s vision in a sun-drenched Italy, all gorgeous people in lovely clothes frolicking about a villa having a glorious time. It continues with Joss Whedon’s black-and-white “I filmed this over a weekend with my actor friends and it shows” version. (Although even that had a flash of brilliance in Beatrice’s “I would eat his heart in the marketplace” speech.)

Also APPARENTLY the Mumford and Sons song “Sigh No More” is largely built of Much Ado about Nothing quotes? I just realized that. A little embarrassing really! No wonder the lyrics are so poetic.

And I’ve spent years intending to see the David Tennant/Catherine Tate version, which perhaps FINALLY I will get around to watching, now that the National Theater reminded me once again just how much I enjoy this play.

The stage is set at the Hotel Messina in the 1920s/30s. The general vibe struck me as twenties, but Beatrice’s costumes are pure 1930s screwball comedy, as befits the ancestress of Rosalind Russell and Claudette Colbert. It’s sharp and stylish, all jazz renditions of Shakespeare’s songs and Benedick hiding under an ice cream cart to eavesdrop on the Duke and Claudio discussing Beatrice’s supposed unrequited love for him. They had an aesthetic and they committed and God I love that.

The acting is also delightful. The mains are all wonderful: Beatrice and Benedick have that delicious “I hate you but maybe because I love you” vibe down, Hero is sweetly charming as a modest maiden in the flush of first love, Claudio is over the top and impulsive that makes it almost possible to forgive his later actions.

But the smaller parts are delicious, too. I loved the attention on Margaret, whose seduction ends up putting Hero in such peril, once Don John convinces Hero’s fiance that it is Hero up their being seduced. Like Hero, Margaret is a giddy girl in love (or lust, anyway), a quick witty young woman who awkwardly raises a hand at Hero’s wedding, trying to get a chance to explain—only for Don John to shove her aside. (Now in real life, one might feel that Margaret should have tried a little harder. But listen, she can only achieve so much against the tyranny of the script.)

And the guards! I must confess that in all the other versions I’ve seen, I found the guards deeply annoying and not comical at all. But somehow here they are charming! And, okay, the head guard is still also a little annoying, he has to be a little annoying to explain why Hero’s father thrusts the guards aside when listening to them could have saved so much trouble, but mostly he’s annoying in a genuinely funny way.

I can’t remember if Much Ado about Nothing is generally accounted one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” but it’s always been a problem play for me because it’s so genuinely funny and lighthearted and sweet… except for the central incident of the play, where Claudio repudiates Hero at the altar because he thinks he saw her cheating on him at the window last night. (The girl he saw is, as aforementioned, Margaret being seduced by one of Don John’s minions.) Hero fakes her death, Claudio discovers she was framed and repents, and then they are married, HAPPY END.

Only to a modern audience, this ending doesn’t seem happy at all. He was willing to ruin her life by repudiating her at the altar! Why should she ever go back to him? And because this incident is absolutely central to the play, the moving force of the entire second half, you can’t take it out or even much mitigate it.

The Branagh version doesn’t try to mitigate anything: Claudio actually throws Hero to the ground at the altar. Here’s the Shakespeare play! This scene is what it is, and make what you will of it!

In the National Theater productions so far, this tends to be their attitude toward language that we moderns find objectionable, which I respect. It is what it is, the product of a very different milieu than our own, and it’s silly to bowdlerize it.

However, this production does emphasize Claudio’s youth and impulsiveness. As he ages and settles down, perhaps he may become a better husband than the repudiation scene might lead one to expect. And, to be fair, there’s no evidence that he’s likely to become violently jealous again: Don John had to stage an elaborate ruse to convince Claudio that his angel Hero could possibly be unchaste, because Claudio wouldn’t listen to mere slander.

But goddamn, though! That repudiation at the altar! Love the play, but that scene is always tough, and it will probably always annoy me that Claudio’s “punishment” is perfect happiness in the end.

One thing I did particularly like about this production: the last lines, which are usually the Duke’s, go to Beatrice instead. She’s the one who’s going to invent “brave punishments” for Don John, and he’d better run fast and hard so she never gets the chance, because oh MY is she going to come up with something good to punish the man who nearly ruined her beloved cousin Hero.

Comments

[landofnowhere]

Oooh, giving the last lines to Beatrice sounds great! I remember one of my reactions to the Branagh version was being disappointed that Benedick gets to windbag it up at the end while Beatrice just stays quiet.

Do you know about Nothing Much To Do? It's a web series by a bunch of New Zealand teenagers giving Much Ado About Nothing the Lizzie Bennet Diaries treatment, and it is absolutely adorable!

[osprey_archer]

Yes, Nothing Much to Do was on my radar during the literary vlog adaptation explosion after the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, but I never got around to watching it. Maybe someday! I think the only other one I actually watched was the Jane Eyre one.

[landofnowhere]

I think *Nothing Much To Do* is the best of the post *Lizzie Bennet* vlogs (and I've watched quite a few!) so I hope you get around to watching it at some point.

[slashmarks]

This is my favorite Shakespeare play, but I think it does require a particular kind of cultural logic to work, where Hero's reputation for chastity being fixed is an absolute prerequisite to her being allowed to live any kind of normal life after - with anyone, or alone - but she doesn't necessarily want or need an actual emotional relationship with her husband, and it won't be her fault if that marriage falls apart later. Modern stagings can really raise some questions!

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I think that cultural logic still works in 1930s Italy, but trying to set it in, say, America in 2024 would be a problem. The story line just ceases to make sense. Claudio could throw Hero over at the altar for cheating, and it might be a huge emotional blow, but it wouldn't have the same repercussions for the rest of her life and it's impossible to imagine anyone else being happy when she decides to go through with the marriage later on after he behaved like that.

[troisoiseaux]

And, okay, the head guard is still also a little annoying, he has to be a little annoying to explain why Hero’s father thrusts the guards aside when listening to them could have saved so much trouble, but mostly he’s annoying in a genuinely funny way.

That's my boy David Fynn!!! (I was SO annoyed to learn that there is a National Theatre film of She Stoops to Conquer with both him and John Heffernan - this production's Benedick - and also Cush Jumbo in it, it exists, but it's not available on NHAT and this feels like an act of cruelty to me personally.)

ANYWAY. This is probably my favorite NTAH show so far; everyone in it absolutely kills it. I also have a longstanding theory that the ideal Much Ado is as a 1930s-40s screwball comedy and was delighted to be proved correct. And the added-in scene of Hero responding to Claudio mourning her with Sonnet 29...

[sovay]

(I was SO annoyed to learn that there is a National Theatre film of She Stoops to Conquer with both him and John Heffernan - this production's Benedick - and also Cush Jumbo in it, it exists, but it's not available on NHAT and this feels like an act of cruelty to me personally.)

I wish to sign on to your objection.

I also have a longstanding theory that the ideal Much Ado is as a 1930s-40s screwball comedy and was delighted to be proved correct.

fleurdelis41 and I had this conversation in 2011 after a performance of Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict which set the opera in 1950's Sicily, which was fine but opened up the entire twentieth-century question. We couldn't think of a single production which had done the play as straight-ahead screwball, sharp edges and all, and we couldn't figure out why. I am so glad to hear it's just becoming a thing.

(Apparently Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) is the closest thing I have to an icon for screwball comedy. I should just do one for Lew Ayres in Holiday (1938) and that will also take care of the problem plays.)

[troisoiseaux]

I wish to sign on to your objection.

I spotted Heffernan in another NTAH show, actually! 2009's The Habit of Art— I watched the first ten minutes or so and it wasn't my cup of tea, but I was delighted to recognize him.

[sovay]

I spotted Heffernan in another NTAH show, actually! 2009's The Habit of Art— I watched the first ten minutes or so and it wasn't my cup of tea, but I was delighted to recognize him.

Yes! He's the assistant stage manager! It's probably the first place I saw him. I did love the show; it also netted me Alex Jennings.

[osprey_archer]

Oh NO, it truly does seem like they're withholding that production specifically in order to torment you personally.

YES this show was so well done. The actors are great, the staging/costuming is so on point, I loved the jazz renditions of Shakespeare songs (IIRC "Sigh No More" is from this play, but they've also lifted some from other plays), and I loved all the dancing - I read somewhere that the original stagings would have had singing and dancing (maybe between acts? maybe as part of the play? can't remember) but anyway I think it adds to the general feeling of joyousness. And it's so funny, and yet also poignant, like Hero's sonnet.

I also loved the moment where Hero's mother just deathstares the Duke. He's told her to stop talking, and she does, but nonetheless she gets the last word in that confrontation.

[troisoiseaux]

I also loved the moment where Hero's mother just deathstares the Duke.

Changing the character of Leonato's brother Antonio to Leonato's wife Antonia made for such an interesting dynamic!

[jenett]

I absolutely recommend the Tennant and Tate version when you get a chance. (It's the first one where someone pulled off the moment of 'these men have just come from war' for me in a way that was viscerally believable, when Beatrice asks Benedick to deal with Claudio.)

[osprey_archer]

For a while it was on Youtube I think, but I don't know if it still is. That's a problem for after my National Theater subscription runs out, though!

[landofnowhere]

If the college you work at subscribes to Digital Theatre+, you can stream it for free on that platform! (This is how I watched it.)

[skygiants]

I have a source if you can't find it!

[skygiants]

I watched Anyone But You last week, the modern Much Ado romcom riff that completely skips the Hero and Claudio problem (Hero and Claudia are cute, they're lesbians, they're getting married, they're made for each other, No Problems Ever In Hero And Claudia Land), and was really struck by how slight it is if you don't have The Awful Midpoint -- because the meat of the story is Benedick choosing to stand with Beatrice against the easy camaraderie of Claudio and Don Pedro, and if Benedick never has to make that choice then the love story has no real foundation.

[osprey_archer]

Yes exactly, that moment is so awful but also it is absolutely integral to the architecture of the play. You can't take it out without replacing it with something equally awful that would give Beatrice legitimate reason to ask Benedick to kill Claudio, and it's SO hard to imagine what that could be that the audience would at the end be like "Yeah we're so happy Claudio and Hero are getting married. Everything's great here. Happy endings all around."

[whimsyful]

The David Tennant/Catherine Tate version of Much Ado is my personal favorite. It's great to hear the NTAH version is good too! I got a subscription as a Christmas present for my partner so I've been really enjoying your reviews of their catalogue.

[Claudio] was willing to ruin her life by repudiating her at the altar! Why should she ever go back to him? And because this incident is absolutely central to the play, the moving force of the entire second half, you can’t take it out or even much mitigate it.
From what I remember the Tennant/Tate version handled this by really playing up Claudio remorse after the truth comes out, to the point where he almost attempts suicide, so taking the "he fucked up but he's REALLY sorry and will never do this again" route. I've also read an interesting interpretation online where someone's personal headcanon is that Leonardo actually doesn't *like* his daughter that much, so her willingness to marry Claudio despite what he's done is as much about leaving her father's house as the marriage itself.

[osprey_archer]

Claudio attempting suicide over Hero's death is a super Shakespearian twist. I like it! Might actually make me okay with his and Hero's eventual marriage! I'll see how I feel about it when I see it play out in the Tennant/Tate version.