much ado about nothing

 

  • [55] The cast also includes Literature[edit] In 2016, Lily Anderson released the young adult novel The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You, a modern adaptation of Much Ado About
    Nothing whose main characters, Trixie Watson and Ben West, attend a “school for geniuses”.

  • [citation needed] In 2006 the American Music Theatre Project produced The Boys Are Coming Home,[42] a musical adaptation by Berni Stapleton and Leslie Arden that sets Much
    Ado About Nothing in America during the Second World War.

  • [citation needed] Don John plays upon Claudio’s pride and fear of cuckoldry, leading to the disastrous first wedding.

  • In Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film, Balthasar sings it beautifully: it is given a prominent role in the opening and finale, and the women seem to embrace its message.

  • [6][25][26] The title can also be understood as Much Ado About Noting: much of the action centres on interest in others and critique of others, written messages, spying, and
    eavesdropping.

  • [44][45] Film[edit] The first cinematic version in English may have been the 1913 silent film directed by Phillips Smalley.

  • [citation needed] • 1965: A National Theatre production directed by Franco Zeffirelli with Maggie Smith, Robert Stephens, Ian McKellen, Lynn Redgrave, Albert Finney, Michael
    York and Derek Jacobi among others • 1965: A Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Drama Recording nomination went to a recording of a National Theatre production with Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens • 1973: A Tony Award Nomination for “Best
    Featured Actor in a Play” went to Barnard Hughes as Dogberry in the New York Shakespeare Festival production.

  • The second, between Claudio’s friend Benedick and Hero’s cousin Beatrice, takes centre stage as the play continues, with both characters’ wit and banter providing much of
    the humour.

  • [citation needed] John Gielgud made Benedick one of his signature roles between 1931 and 1959, playing opposite Diana Wynyard, Peggy Ashcroft, and Margaret Leighton.

  • [citation needed] Infidelity[edit] Several characters seem obsessed with the idea that a man cannot know whether his wife is faithful and that women can take full advantage
    of this.

  • Don Pedro’s last line can be understood to mean ‘Pay attention to your music and nothing else!’

  • Performance history The play was very popular in its early decades and continues to be one of Shakespeare’s most performed plays.

  • Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599.

  • [1] The play was included in the First Folio, published in 1623.

  • [23] Deception[edit] Beatrice, Hero and Ursula, John Jones, after Henry Fuseli (c. 1771) The play has many examples of deception and self-deception.

  • in which Benedick plays on the word post as a pole and as mail delivery in a joke reminiscent of Shakespeare’s earlier advice ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’; and (2.3.138–142)
    Claudio: Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.

  • [27] • 1960: A Tony Award Nomination for “Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play” went to Margaret Leighton for her role played in Much Ado.

  • Friar: Hear me a little, For I have only been silent so long And given way unto this course of fortune By noting of the lady.

  • [56] In 2017, Mckelle George released a YA adaptation, Speak Easy, Speak Love, in which the play’s events take place in the 1920s, focused around a failing speakeasy.

  • [18] Charles I wrote, ‘Benedick and Beatrice’ beside the title of the play in his copy of the Second Folio.

  • [citation needed] An earlier BBC television version with Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, adapted from Franco Zeffirelli’s stage production for the National Theatre Company’s
    London stage production, was broadcast in February 1967.

  • Another motif is the play on the words nothing and noting.

  • “Much Ado About Nothing”, Act IV, Scene 2, the Examination of Conrade and Borachio (from the Boydell series), Robert Smirke (n.d.) On the night of Don John’s treachery, the
    local Watch overheard Borachio and Conrade discussing their “treason”[5] and “most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the commonwealth”,[5] and arrested them therefore.

  • [31] • 1931: John Gielgud played Benedick for the first time at the Old Vic Theatre, and it stayed in his repertory until 1959.

  • [29] The great 19th-century stage team Henry Irving and Ellen Terry counted Benedick and Beatrice as their greatest triumph.

  • They are considered the leading roles even though their relationship is given equal or lesser weight in the script than Claudio’s and Hero’s situation.

  • [33] • 2011: Eve Best appeared as Beatrice and Charles Edwards as Benedick at Shakespeare’s Globe, directed by Jeremy Herrin.

  • Television and web series[edit] There have been several screen adaptations of Much Ado About Nothing, almost all of them made for television.

  • Many of the men readily believe that Hero is impure; even her father condemns her with very little evidence.

  • [57] In 2018, Molly Booth released a summer YA novel adaptation, Nothing Happened, in which Claudio and Hero are a queer couple, Claudia and Hana.

  • Characters • Benedick, a lord and soldier from Padua; companion of Don Pedro • Beatrice, niece of Leonato • Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon • Don John, “the Bastard Prince”, brother
    of Don Pedro • Claudio, of Florence; a count, companion of Don Pedro, friend to Benedick • Leonato, governor of Messina; Hero’s father • Antonio, brother of Leonato • Balthasar, attendant on Don Pedro, a singer • Borachio, follower of Don
    John • Conrade, follower of Don John • Innogen, a ‘ghost character’ in early editions as Leonato’s wife • Hero, daughter of Leonato • Margaret, waiting-gentlewoman attendant on Hero • Ursula, waiting-gentlewoman attendant on Hero • Dogberry,
    the constable in charge of Messina’s night watch • Verges, the Headborough, Dogberry’s partner • Friar Francis, a priest • a Sexton, the judge of the trial of Borachio • a Boy, serving Benedick • The Watch, watchmen of Messina • Attendants
    and Messengers Synopsis In Messina, a messenger brings news that Don Pedro will return that night from a successful battle, along with Claudio and Benedick.

  • [citation needed] An adaptation is the 1973 New York Shakespeare Festival production by Joseph Papp, shot on videotape and released on VHS and DVD, that includes more of the
    text than Branagh’s version.

  • The games and tricks played on people often have the best intentions: to make people fall in love, to help someone get what they want, or to lead someone to realize their
    mistake.

  • [53] The 2014 YouTube web series Nothing Much to Do is a modern retelling of the play, set in New Zealand.

  • John Gielgud and Margaret Leighton in the 1959 Broadway production of Much Ado About Nothing After the theatres reopened during the Restoration, Sir William Davenant staged
    The Law Against Lovers (1662), which inserted Beatrice and Benedick into an adaptation of Measure for Measure.

  • [citation needed] The first sound version in English released to cinemas was the highly acclaimed 1993 film by Kenneth Branagh.

  • Sources Shakespeare’s immediate source may have been one of Matteo Bandello of Mantua’s Novelle (“Tales”), possibly the translation into French by François de Belleforest,[6]
    which dealt with the tribulations of Sir Timbreo and his betrothed Fenicia Lionata, in Messina, after Peter III of Aragon’s defeat of Charles of Anjou.

  • The title track of the 2009 Mumford & Sons album Sigh No More uses quotes from this play in the song.

  • In contrast, Balthasar’s song “Sigh No More” tells women to accept men’s infidelity and continue to live joyfully.

  • It seems that comic drama could be a means of calming such anxieties.

  • [24] Taken literally, the title implies that a great fuss (‘much ado’) is made of something insignificant (‘nothing’), such as the unfounded claims of Hero’s infidelity and
    that Benedick and Beatrice are in love with each other.

  • [30] Jacobi had also played Benedick in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s highly praised 1982 production, with Sinéad Cusack playing Beatrice.

  • [27] Director Terry Hands produced the play on a stage-length mirror against an unchanging backdrop of painted trees.

  • [36] • 2019: Danielle Brooks as Beatrice and Grantham Coleman as Benedick with an all-Black cast set in contemporary Georgia, at The Public Theater, directed by Kenny Leon.

  • [27] Actors, theatres, and awards[edit] Print of Ellen Terry as Beatrice and Henry Irving as Benedick in an 1887 performance of the play • c. 1598: In the original production
    by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, William Kempe played Dogberry and Richard Cowley played Verges.

  • Benedick: Ho, now you strike like the blind man – ’twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.

  • [52] In 2005, the BBC adapted the story by setting it in the modern-day studios of Wessex Tonight, a fictional regional news programme, as part of the ShakespeaRe-Told season,
    with Damian Lewis, Sarah Parish, and Billie Piper.

  • Benedick and Beatrice quickly became the main interest of the play.

  • [citation needed] In 2015, Billie Joe Armstrong wrote the music for a rock opera adaptation of the play, These Paper Bullets, which was written by Rolin Jones.

  • 1898) by Paul Puget and Much Ado About Nothing by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1901) are based upon the play.

  • Remorseful and thinking Hero dead, Claudio agrees to her father’s demand that he marry Antonio’s daughter, “almost the copy of my child that’s dead”.

  • [49] The 2023 romantic comedy Anyone But You directed by Will Gluck and co-written by Ilana Wolpert,[50][51] and starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as analogues of Beatrice
    and Benedick, is a loose adaptation principally set in contemporary Australia.

  • [11] Date and text According to the earliest printed text, Much Ado About Nothing was “sundry times publicly acted” before 1600.

  • [20] This was reflected and emphasized in certain plays of the period but was also challenged.

  • Swooning of Hero in the Church scene by Alfred Elmore The next day, at the wedding, Claudio denounces Hero before the stunned guests and storms off with Don Pedro.

  • The play is set in Messina and revolves around two romantic pairings that emerge when a group of soldiers arrive in the town.

  • [27] David Garrick first played Benedick in 1748 and continued to play him until 1776.

  • [34] • The official poster for the 2011 production starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate • 2011: David Tennant as Benedick alongside Catherine Tate as Beatrice in a production
    of the play at the Wyndham’s Theatre, directed by Josie Rourke.

 

Works Cited

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3. ^ Zitner, Sheldon P., ed. (2008). Much Ado About Nothing. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 131–132. ISBN 978-0-19-953611-5.
4. ^ Jump up to:a b
“Much Ado About Nothing: Act 1, Scene 1”. shakespeare-navigators.com. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
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Bate, Jonathan (2007). “Much Ado About Nothing”. The RSC Shakespeare: the complete works. New York: Macmillan. p. 257. ISBN 978-0-230-00350-7.
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\ Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/maureendidde/4521496161/’]