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Shakespeare Produced

'MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING'

Eileen Lund discusses her pro­duclion for Dewshury Arts Croup THE PLAY Initially, when I first thought of

producing ' Much Ado' it was because - of all Shakespeare's

comedies that I have seen - it had

made me laugh the most on the

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memorable occasion when I saw

the RSC's production with Don­ald Sinden as Benedick , Judi

De nch a s Bcatrice and John Woodvine as Dogberry. Like

most people in the play's 400 year performing history , what I

principally remembered was the battle of wits between Benedick

and Beatrice. which seemed to steal the show from their colour­

less friends. On re-reading the play I was astonished to find how

little dialogue there actually was

between these two and confront­ed with the problem of what to

do with the ' dista s teful' Hero­

Claudio plot which forms the main impetus for dramatic action.

This is the original Italian melo­drama on which Shakespeare based his play and with which he

skillfully interwove two comic

themes of his own. The action takes place in Mcssi­

na, Sicily , where Don Pedro (the Prince) , returning from rece nt wars , pays an unexpected visit on

the Governor, Leonato. One of Don Pedro's young 'gallants'

Claudio falls in love with Leona­

to's daughter. Hero, who is then wooed by the Prince on Clau­dio 's behalf. This is the first of

many deceptions which run as a

thcme throughout the play.

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Despite malicious interference by the Prince 's brothe r. Don John.

this affair is happily resolved by the end of Act II Scene I. Then

th e main business of the play

begins . as two deceptions arc planned: one by Don John and his

henchman Borachio to destroy th e love between Claudio and

Hero; and the other by Don Pedro and fricnd s to crcatc lov e between Benedick and Beatrice­

two characters of Shakespeare 's

invention who have been profess­ing their disdain for love from the very first scene. Act III sees the

development of both these plans, along with the introduction of

another unique comic invention

Dogberry and the Watch - who,

in their sheer stupidity. stumble on the truth of the plot to blacken

Hero's honour but are unable to convince Leonato o f the impor­tance of their di scovery before it

is too late. In Act rv Scene I the

two 'Iove' plots reach a critical

interaction as Hero is denounced as a whore by Claudio at the altar, then abandoned in a dead

faint and Benedick and Beatrice declare their love for each other

and their wholehearted support

for Hero in her disgrace. In com­mitting himself, at Beatrice ' s

instigation , to 'kill Claudio ' Benedick shakes off completely the social conventions which dic­

tat e so much of Claudio. Don

Pedro and Leonato 's behaviour,

and speaks out of true emotion. The Friar suggests as a temporary solution a further deception : that it should be rumoured that Hero

is dead until the truth can be a sce rtained , This occurs in the

ensuing trial scene - despite Dog­

berry's attempts to massacre the Engl ish language in the process ­and the three levels of the plot

come together in Act V Scene I, when Borachio is confronted with

his villainy, Hero ' s name cleared.

and Claudio bound to w ed Leonato' s brother ' s daughter in penance for his part in Hero' s

death and di shonour. The final scene echoes the ill-fated

betrothal of IV.I , but this time all

ends in harmony as Claudio' s new hride is revealed as the unblemished Hero and Benedick

and Beatrice are tricked into pub­

liely affirming their lovc.

Benedick - a changed man - takes over the central role from the Prince , who is left to contemplate

the isolated state his deceptions

have landed him in. The range of melodramatic, trag­

ic. comic and farcical elements in the play 's style made it a particu­

larly challenging proposition for our actors. As producer, the two main difficulties I foresaw were

(i) the unconvincing nature of the

main plot and many of the characters . and (ii) the Shake­

spearean language. which our ac tors hav e not been trained to deliver and with which our audi­

ences would , by aod large, not be

familiar enough to follow the

meaning closely. My solution to the first problem was to set the

play in a 1930's Mafioso gang­land. where honour was highly pri",ed and men hasty to avenge

any slur on themselves or tbeir

family. This, I hoped, would give

the characters of Don Pedro and Claudio nn undercurrent of

ove r the heads of most of our

audiences and would only impede

the development of the plot. In rehearsals I encouraged the cast to concentrate on the overall

meaning behind a speech. speak­ing the I ines as quickly and natu­

rally as possible, without any play on the words. We also tried . wherever possible, to make points

visually - moves, gestures , body language in general would be a

vital part of our actors' communi­cation with the audience.

CASTING & REHEARSALS Auditions were held early in November and were fairly we ll

attended , with much competition for the part of Beatrice, but some

ringing round and juggling was neccssary to fill the 17 m e n ' s

paris, and the Production Secre­

tary rece ived unexpected eleva­tion when ' Ursula ' was forced to

drop out. We had an early read

through at the beginning of Jan­uary to establish the script so that

the cast could make a s tart on

their line s and then began

. unpredictability and menace, thus

adding weight to the main plot. It gave the actors a familiar person­ality-type to build their character­isation upon, within a context

which would also be familiar to

most of the audience. Providing shared reference points would. I fe lt . increase a modern audience's understanding of the play. With regard to the second problem , I

decided to cut most of the classi­cal allusions from the script.

Despite the fact that the language

is a particular feature of 'Much Ado ' I felt I had to be ruthless, as I doubted if we were cxperienced enough to delive r it effectively ;

the classical allusions would go

rehearsals in earnest on 27th Jan­uary. This gave us the usual six­

week rehearsal period for an Arts Group production, but to a cast strugg ling with Shakespeare 's language, and stylistic demand s

totally at variance with this, it

probably seemed far too short. However, I was very impressed

with the hard work put in to both aspects. which resulted in many of the cast relinquishing their

scripts before the 'books down ' deadline . (This transition was

probably made easier by the

excellent support of our Prompt. ) At first there was a strong tempta­tion to match movement and ges­

tures to the style of the language

Amateur 51llge October 1991

Shakespeare Prodllced

but, as appropriate business was developed, videos of 'The Cotton Club' and 'The Godfather' watched, and bits and pieces of costume donned, gradually the cast slipped into their Thirties Gangland characters. A couple of extra characters were addcd to the original cast - a waiter in Leona­to's nightclub, and a 'Minder' for Don Pcdro - who both playcd an important part ill establishing thc right atmosphere. I was lucky to find 1930 's arrangemcnts of 'Sigh No More, Ladies' and ' It Was A Lover And His Lass ' (originally recorded by AI Bowl ­Iy) so our nightclub was equipped with a pianist and crooner too. By the final stages of rehearsal the cast wcre sufficiently confident to throw in the occasional ad lib and only raised a few good-naturcd grumbles when I asked them to dance in the finale. The daunting challenge which faced us seemed to produce a level of commitment and a team spirit that were evi­dent in the final pcrformances. I was always quite confident that the play would 'come together ' in the end but - as always with large casts we did have o ur problems with people missing rehearsals. It was nic e for the final Dress Rehearsal to filially have a com­ple te cast. SET AND LIGHTING DESIGN A report from 11'01' Westwood

(set) (lnd Andy Wright (lighTing):

The initial dialogue was short , sharp and to the point. Dircctor, designer and lighting met, reject­ed downtown Palermo and settled on 'somewhere in gangland USA' in the 1930 's. It just had to be dark purple brown, brick orange and oatmeal after consulting art deco book. The colours seemed ideal for 'Leonato's nightspot' - a haunt of gangsters. With trees , pillars. posts , wrought-iron fenc­ing, hydrants , poles and lamp standards in mind we raided the local carpet clearance warehouse for our basic component - the car­pet tube. These structures were all erected on thc extended apron, some being multi-tube compos­ites. ' Bugsy Malone ' provided us with ideas to develop and a three­panel de sign with se mi -c ircular tops was established as the art deco period theme. The stage, a :iny one at Dewsbury Arts Cen­re, was to be free from fixed

. "'attllr Sl({ge October 1991

scenery and two pairs of hinged translucent panels were the only movabl e scenery. We gave the existing proscenium arch a four­foot wide moulding and decorat­ed it with a d esign of semi-circular curved motifs and erected our substantial pillars on the apron and floor of the theatre , most being braced to the theatre roof The apron was clad with a painted stylised wrought iron motif, the whole seeking to com­press the stage into a tight yet empty acting area. Our ali-pur­pose six-legged mahogany table served a multitude of rolls from billiard table to mortuary slab. The bentwood chairs echoed the semi-circular motif on cyc wall and proscenium arch, the centml pancl 011 the wall being used for a projected stained-glass window during the church scenc. Strong and potcntially heavy out front, the sct offe red an adaptable stage environment for a I.argc group of characters, provided a stage pic­ture yet endeavoured to creatc a symbolic architectural se t which reflectcd the art deco style. General lighting was required for most of the scenes, ",l ith varia­tions for interior and cxterior and different times of the d<lY. Thi s was provided with complemen­tary tints of blue and pale gold. Blue from both sides was used to light the stage right area of the apron which was, at certain times , an outdoor cafe and the street outside Leonato's house . At the other end of the apron the Watch scene took place at night , lit in deeper blue, broken up with a gobo. For the wedding scene the effect of sunlight throu g h church windows was obtained by cross-lighting the stage in green tints , in combination with blue tints out front. A stained-glass window was projected onto the back wall using a gobo. One very

short scene took place in Hero's tomb. For this the producer requested a multiple candleholder with 21 candles - 20 already lit and one to bc lit during the scene by Claudio, apparently with a taper lit from a candle carried by a member of the cast. The scene was lit in a brown colour to give a

Mistress and her assistant seerro.. to have taken on an Hercu lean task . We have quite a large stOC of costumes of the period in our own Wardrobe but some of the sui ts had bee n savagcd by the moths and most of the ladies' out­fits were not sufficiently smart or colourful for our purposes. In the

so mbre effect. Othcr specia l lighting provision consisted of a mirror ball for the dance sequence in Act II Sc I , and two lamps behind panel s at either side of the stage to show silhouettes when Don Pedro's plan is over­heard at the end of Act I Sc I. PROPERTIES & COSTUMES Props were made available from 'books down ' which was a great help to the cast. There was very little furniture for the actors to ' use ' so props were important in establishing the context of each scene and our Props ladies coped calmly with all the little 'ext ras' I thought up in the last couple of weeks. One prop which caused the actors considerable torme nt was a pack of cards: the co-ordi­nation required to carryon dia­logu e whilst dealing cards. placing bets e tc. was almost too much for them and a card school was frequently set up in spare rooms for extra practice. Costumes proved to be a consid­erable problem and our Wardrobe

end we hired quite a lot of cos­tumes from Th ea trew orld in Sheffield (an extremely he lpful and friendly establishment), although we managed to kit out most of the men in evening suits for the nightclub and wedding scene s from our Wardrob e . Despite a rather fraught couple of weeks immediately prior to the production, I felt that th e cos­tumes finally added greatly to the effectiveness of the setting and the finishing touches to some actors' characterisations. PERFORMANCE The play was performed over fi ve nights in a small theatre which we hire from the Local Authority (seating about 180). W e were sold out almost two weeks before performance and th e play was generally well rece ived by our audiences, although the press seemed to fi.nd it hard to come to terms with the modern setting. Our first perfor­mance was to an audience which in c lud ed a large proportion of schoolchildren taking advantage of our Theatre Studies sc heme. They were particularly enthusias­tic and enjoyed a lively discus­sion with the cast, set designer and myself after the show. From their feedback, and other com­ments passed on to me, I felt we had to some extent succeeded in what I set out to do - to make Shakespeare real and exciting to a modem audience - but we had, inevitably, disappointed the tradi­tionalists.

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