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Jobsite Theatre Study Guide - Much Ado About Nothing 2013- Tierra Bonser 1

Jobsite Theatre Presents:

By William Shakespeare


The Cast

Jason Evans Borachio/Antonio

Ned Averill-Snell Benedick

Roxanne Fay Beatrice

Betty-Jane Parks Hero/Watchman

Spencer Meyers-Balthasar/Dogberry/Friar

Francis

Matt Lunsford Don Pedro/Verges

Michael C. McGreevy Don John/Watchman

Alvin Jenkins Leonato/Watchman/

Sexton

Katrina Stevenson Margaret/Watchman

Jonathan Cho Claudio/ Conrade

The Household Leonato Governor of Messina Father of Hero Uncle of Beatrice Antonio Brother of Leonato Uncle to Hero Hero Leonato’s daughter Beatrice’s Cousin Beatrice Leonato’s Niece Hero’s Cousin Margaret Beatrice and Hero’s attending gentlewoman

The Officers

Don Pedro Prince of Arragon and the commander of his battalion. Don John Bastard brother on Don Pedro Balthasar Attendant on Don Pedro Benedick A young Lord of Padua, soldier in Don Pedro’s battalion. Claudio A young Lord of Florence, soldier in Don Pedro’s battalion.

The Locals Borachio A follower of Don John. Conrade A follower of Don John. Dogberry A Constable Friar Francis A Friar Verges Helps Dogberry interrogate Sexton Helps Dogberry & Verges interrogate Watchman 1 & 2


Character Functions …what they do in the play…

Don Pedro: Prince of Arragon, recently victorious in battle against Don John, accepts Leonato's invitation to sojourn for a month.

Don John: bastard brother of Don Pedro, jealous of war hero Claudio and schemes to destroy his wedding plans.

Claudio: a young lord of Florence, falling in love with Leonato's daughter Hero and marries her.

Benedick: a young lord of Padua, he initially claims he will never fall in love or marry, although he falls in love with Leonato's "adopted" niece, Beatrice.

Leonato: Governor of Messina, has an "adopted niece," Beatrice, but hints she might be his illegitimate daughter; he is overcome with rage when Claudio suddenly refuses to marry his daughter, Hero, on grounds of infidelity.

Antonio: he tries to comfort Leonato, his brother.

Balthasar: attendant on Don Pedro.

Conrade: follower of Don John, he and Borachio are arrested and forced to confess.

Borachio: follower of Don John.

Friar Francis: when Hero is accused of infidelity he arranges for her to appear to have died so that Claudio will realize his false accusation.

Dogberry: constable, he manages to uncover Don John's plot.

Verges: helps Dogberry interrogate Borachio and Conrade.

A Sexton: joins Dogberry and Verges in the interrogation.

Hero: Daughter of Leonato, she is wrongly accused of "savage sensuality" and disloyalty because of the machinations of Don John, but in the end marries Claudio.

Beatrice: An orphan niece to Leonateo, quick witted and likes to banter.

Margaret: Gentlewoman attending on Hero wrongly accused of helping Don John dupe Claudio.

Figure 1. Boyd, A.S. Scenes from Much Ado About Nothing.


Scene Breakdowns

*Act I

Scene I The army of Don Pedro of Aragon arrives in Messina and is welcomed by Leonato, Messina’s governor. Benedick

of Padua, a soldier in Don Pedro’s army, proclaims his enmity to love and engages in a skirmish of wits with Leonato’s niece, Beatrice. Count Claudio, the hero of Don Pedro’s just-ended war, falls in love with Leonato’s daughter Hero and confesses his love to Don Pedro, who decides to woo Hero for Claudio. Scene II

Leonato is given a garbled account of the conversation between Don Pedro and Claudio, and is led to believe Don Pedro wishes to marry Hero. Scene III

Don John, Don Pedro’s (bastard) brother, receives a true account of Don Pedro’s plan to woo Hero for Claudio. Resentful of both Don Pedro and Claudio, who have defeated him in the just-ended war, Don John hopes to find a way to block the marriage.

Act II Scene I

Don Pedro and his soldiers, disguised in masks, dance with the ladies of Leonato’s household. While Don Pedro woos Hero, Beatrice mocks Benedick. After the dance, Don John distresses Claudio by telling him that Don Pedro has won Hero’s love. When Claudio learns that Hero has been won in his name, he wants to marry her immediately. Leonato insists that at least a week is needed to prepare for the wedding. Don Pedro proposes that the intervening time be used to trick Benedick and Beatrice into falling in love. Scene II

Don John and his henchman Borachio agree on a plan to disrupt the coming marriage: Borachio will convince Claudio that Hero is unfaithful by staging a meeting with Margaret, Hero’s waiting gentlewoman. Margaret will be dressed in Hero’s clothes, and Claudio will think that Borachio is Hero’s lover. Scene III

Leonato, Claudio, and Don Pedro stage a conversation for Benedick to overhear. They talk about Beatrice’s desperate love for Benedick, about their fears that her suffering will destroy her, and about how Benedick would mock Beatrice if he knew of her love. Benedick decides that he must love Beatrice in return.

Figure 2 Artist unknown


Act III Scene I

Beatrice is lured into overhearing a staged conversation between Hero and Ursula, a waiting gentlewoman, who talk about Benedick’s desperate love for Beatrice and about Beatrice’s arrogance. Beatrice decides that she must return Benedick’s love. Scene II

Benedick appears with his beard shaved off and showing other signs of having fallen in love. When he exits with Leonato, Don John tells Don Pedro and Claudio that Hero is unfaithful and that he will show them a man entering her chamber window that very night, the night before the wedding. Scene III

That night, Messina’s master constable, Dogberry, and his assistant, Verges, set the night watch, telling the watchmen to pay particular attention to any activity around Leonato’s house. Borachio enters, telling his companion, Conrade, about the charade that made Claudio and Don Pedro think that Hero had just allowed him to enter her chamber. Borachio and Conrade are arrested by the watch. Scene IV

Early the next morning, Hero prepares for the wedding. Beatrice enters, suffering, she says, from a bad cold, but Hero and Margaret tease her about being in love with Benedick. Scene V

Dogberry and Verges try to tell Leonato about the arrest of Borachio and Conrade, but they are so unintelligible that Leonato impatiently dismisses them, telling them to examine the prisoners. He leaves for the wedding.

Act IV Scene I

At the wedding, Claudio publicly denounces Hero as a lewd woman. He is supported in his story by Don Pedro and Don John. Hero faints and her accusers depart. The Friar believes in her innocence and proposes that Leonato announce that she has died. This news, the Friar thinks, will make Claudio remember his love for her. After the others depart, Benedick and Beatrice admit they love each other, and Benedick reluctantly agrees to challenge Claudio to a duel. Scene II

Dogberry ineptly questions Borachio and Conrade about the deception of Claudio and Don Pedro. The Sexton has Borachio and Conrade bound and orders them taken to Leonato.


Act V Scene I

Leonato and his brother tell Claudio and don Pedro of Hero’s death, and attempt to challenge them to a duel. Benedick succeeds in issuing his challenge to Claudio. Dogberry and the prisoners enter, and Claudio and Don Pedro learn about the trick that was played on them. They also learn that Don John has fled from Messina. Having been convinced of Hero’s innocence, Claudio begs Leonato’s forgiveness and is told that he must sing an epitaph at Hero’s tomb that night. The next morning, he is to marry Leonato’s “niece.” Scene II

Benedick tells Beatrice that he has challenged Claudio. They are summoned to Leonato’s house with the news that Hero’s innocence has been proved. Scene III

Claudio appears at Leonato’s family tomb, has a song sung for Hero, and hangs a scroll on the tomb. Scene IV

Claudio and Don Pedro appear for the second wedding. The women enter masked. When Claudio takes the hand of Leonato’s “niece,” agreeing to marry her, she unmasks and he learns that she is Hero. Benedick and Beatrice agree to marry, but only out of pity for each other. Love poems each has written to the other are produced to prove that they do, in fact, love each other. Claudio is forgiven by all and a double wedding is set to follow the closing dance. * Breakdowns taken from: Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing: Folger Shakespeare Library. Eds. Mowat, Barbara A. and Paul Werstine. Simon and Schuster Paperbacks: New York, 2009. Print.


Classical Comedy

Most classical comedies have similarities in their structure, tone, purpose and atmosphere. In an apt summation, author David Rush says that, “tragedy is what happens to me while comedy is what happens to you.” In other words, a tragedy involves us, the audience, in an event that we empathize with; we must involve ourselves more deeply on an emotional level with the plot. Meanwhile a classical comedy requires that the audience maintain a certain amount of emotional reticence, or un-involvement, and observe from a strictly spectator perspective. Usually comedies carry a mood of delight, optimism, hope and/or joy and have a positive or ‘happy’ ending. As in all plays and stories, comedies have a major conflict and it is usually one that exists between a person and their society. This often comes to life where a character is living in a society with a specific set of rules that are oppressive and prevent that character from getting what he/she wants and, through the course of the play, these rules are changed to result in the happy ending. Much Ado About Nothing falls in the category of a comedy of manners. This genre is characterized as a play that takes place in a wealthy, sophisticated and leisurely world where smart and witty groups of people poke fun at others in clever world play; there is also usually a love chase with a seduction as the ultimate goal.

Shakespeare's Comedies Shakespeare’s comedies, however, do not always subscribe to the general guidelines listed above. His comedies focus on larger frames of reference like the family, the community or the society and, whereas tragedies bring our focus onto death, reality and finality, Shakespeare’s comedies direct our focus to rebirth and life and its cyclical hopefulness. These comedies are usually characterized by conditional happiness and present life as ongoing and renewed through love and marriage where romantic couples reassure us that love yields hope in the perpetuation of life beyond the individual and into future generations (Essential Shakespeare Handbook, 155.)

Love and Search for Identity Particularly in Much Ado About Nothing, we see a common component of Shakespeare’s comedies in operation. The central thread of the play follows a pair or pairs of lovers (Claudio and Hero/ Beatrice and Benedick) as they overcome tests of love and gain awareness of themselves and their lovers. These tests often come in the shape of disguises or ruses that result in mistaken identity and great miscommunications, but generally Shakespeare works everything out in the end and most wounds are healed with a final celebration scene (the double wedding) that reunites familial and social bonds.


Much Ado About Nothing Much Ado, written between 1598-99, was officially staged in 1613 twice at court for Princess Elizabeth’s engagement to Elector Palatine. Reportedly the princess so greatly enjoyed the scenes between Beatrice and Benedick that on her own copy of the script she scratched out the title and wrote “Beatrice and Benedicke.” Interestingly, although Beatrice and Benedick are the not the protagonists of the story and their plot line is truly meant to be in second place to the main plot line of Claudio and Hero, many people have taken a great liking to the quarreling, quipping couple and made them the main focus of the play and future adaptations of the script. Hector Berlioz wrote an opera of the play in the late nineteenth century that he titled Béatrice et Bénédicte (follow the link to listen to the overture) and many have taken to viewing the play from the perspective of these two witty lovers. Shakespeare can take all the credit for these two beloved characters, because they are all his creation, but the plot of Hero and Claudio was most likely inspired by and pulled from a novella by Italian Matteo Bendello and an English play called Fadele and Fortunio written in 1584. Upon analyzing the play and its plots more closely, it becomes obvious that Shakespeare interweaves both lines throughout the play to provide for a volcanic fourth act; and yet, it must be noted that if we were to remove the plot line of Benedick and Beatrice, although it would be a much different play, the main story and the arc of the tale would still be intact. Try the same with Claudio and Hero’s plot line and the play is in shambles. When reading or watching the play take note of the careful balance between the serious and light layers and how the intrigue builds as characters overhear conversations that usually contain misinformation meant to trick the eavesdropper (Essential Shakespeare Handbook 160). This notion has brought many to point out the double meaning of the play’s title, which, in Shakespeare’s time, would have been interpreted as “much ado about noting,” as in taking note of something else, or listening to something. Like most Shakespearean plays, there are also some inherent challenges in the script that do not always add up. Scholars note the dead end of a potential third plot in Act II, scene i that, if it had continued, would have involved Don Pedro’s love for Hero. At the top of the scene both Claudio and Leonato are convinced that Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself but the idea simply fizzles out and is disregarded throughout the remainder of the play. Another mystery is a character that is often cut from the script altogether. Her name is Innogen and she is Hero’s mother who remains silent throughout the entire play. Some directors see this as a great opportunity to cut an ‘unnecessary character’ from their production, but it can change a crucial statement of the play. In a story that revolves so much around gender relations and the roles of men and women in relationships and society, a mother figure who is seen and not heard can be a condemning statement about women in society. This is even more especially poignant when we hear remarks like those made in Act I, scene i where Leonato and Benedick joke about Hero’s mother having cuckolded Leonato, to which she does not respond. Later when Hero is accused and passes out, her mother again stands by silently. Do not, however, allow this to detract from the great joy and playfulness of the script! It is full of pun, wordplay, clever and bawdy language, innuendo, and many visually hilarious scenes. Instead, try to find and investigate the fine line in the play between the serious and the comedic and consider how these opposites enhance the meaning of the play as a whole.


Activities

Decoding. Take a portion of Dogberry’s lines and try to extract what he is trying to say in comparison with what he is saying. How does he misuse common sayings? Try to come up with a modern adaptation of some of your favorite phrases of his.

Discussions: • Based on your knowledge of the play, discuss the past history of

Beatrice and Benedick and Claudio and Hero. Who do you think has a stronger bond or a more serious relationship? Which couple do you think is more likely to last in the long term? How is each couple’s relationship put to the test and what does it reveal about each person?

• Why are Don John and Don Pedro angry at one another? • How do you think Don Pedro feels toward Beatrice? • How much does Margaret know of her part in the plot against Hero? • Why do you think Borachio devised his plan against Hero and then

divulged it to Don John? • Did Dogberry and Verges do a good job at their posts or was it

‘dumb’ luck?

Casting Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote many of his plays for his theatre troupe, the Lord Chamberlin’s Men and later the King’s Men, with specific casting in mind, but today, theatres must come up with new ways of casting plays that have many more characters than actors available. A great way of doing this is cutting away some characters that the play can do without (although this isn’t ideal) and double casting, where a single actor plays multiple characters. This process needs to be handled with great care and consideration so that the meaning of the play isn’t altered. For example, if we cast the same actor as Claudio and Benedick, the play would never work! But a subtler example of casting that might work logistically, but would change the meaning of the play, would be, for example, to cast Leonato as Hero’s mother and have Leonato played by a woman. In a play where gender dynamics and politics are so vital, the whole landscape of the play is changed away from Shakespeare’s original intent. Talk about it: Talk about the double casting of this production and what it changes about the play. Are any roles taken out entirely? What are the effects?

Style. This production of Much Ado is set in a steam punk style. What do you think are the reasons for choosing the aesthetic? How does it change or not change the way we experience the play? Yipeekiayeee. Other directors have placed this same play in the American southwest, the antebellum south, 1890’s Sicily, 1930’s Cuba, Edwardian England, post-Mutiny India and even a 20th century tourist cruise ship. How would these locations change how you see the play?

Enduring love? Write a scene in which Claudio and Hero meet with Beatrice and Benedick for their collective 10-year anniversary. What do you think each couple’s marriage looks like after ten years?

Trial. Hold a trial for Claudio for slandering Hero and for Don John, Borachio, and, if you think it necessary, Margaret, for their parts in the insidious plot against her. Using lines from the play, how would they defend themselves? What would be their verdicts? How should each be punished?

Innogen. The role of Hero’s mother is a silent one. If you were Hero’s mother, would you have spoken up for her when she was accused at her wedding? What might you have said? What do you think would have happened?

Comedy. Parts of this play are highly tragic. What points in the play made you laugh the most? Which did you find to be tragic or more serious? Name some of your favorite modern comedies and talk about the differences and similarities with classical Shakespearean comedies like Much Ado About Nothing.


Other Resources

Classroom Tools Teacher’s Guide to Much Ado McGlinn Jeanne M. and James E. McGlinn. A Teather’s Guide to the Signet Classic Edition of William Shakespeare’s

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Web. This fantastic study guide is geared for classroom use in analyzing the play before seeing a performance. It includes character listings and breakdowns, scene breakdowns and a series of activities geared toward critical analysis of the play. It also touches on language use in the play and offers an array of group activities as well. Please see included PDF.

15 Minute Much Ado 15 minute Much Ado. Folger Shakespeare Library. Web.

Developed by the Folger Shakespeare Library’s education department for advancing knowledge and the arts, this activity is a plot summary intermingled with lines from the play and is mean to introduce the play to students before seeing a production of it. See included PDF.

Media

Folger Lesson Plans www.folger.edu/lessonplans - Folger Education’s featured lesson plans are updated every month. Search “Lesson Plans Archive” to the left for a complete listing of all lesson plans listed by play. Animation www.stratfordshakespearefestival.com/animations - Check out this Much Ado About Nothing comic animation on the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s website.

Film

Branagh, Kenneth. Much Ado About Nothing. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 1993.

Commentaries Shakespeare’s Comedies Evans, Bertrand. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960. Shakespeare After All: Marjorie Garber, Anchor, 2005. For Fun Klingon: Much Ado About Nothing: The Restored Klingon Text. Trans. Nick Nicholas. Wildside Press, 2003 – As part of the Shakespeare Restoration Project, the Klingon Language Institute has translated Much Ado About Nothing into the language spoken by Klingons in the film and television series Star Trek.


Works Cited Berghe, Ignatius Joseph. Much ado about nothing [IV, 1, Hero fainting at the church]. 1752-1824. Folger Shakespeare

Library Digital Collection. Web.

Boyd, A.S. Scenes from Much Ado About Nothing. 1854. Folger Shakespeare Library Digital Collection. Web.

Essential Shakespeare Handbook. Eds. Dunton-Downer, Leslie and Alan Riding. London: DK Publishing, 2004. Print.

Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing: Folger Shakespeare Library. Eds. Mowat, Barbara A. and Paul

Werstine. Simon and Schuster Paperbacks: New York, 2009. Print.

Rush, David. A Student Guide to Play Analysis. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005

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