Much Ado, Chicago Shakespeare
Today I took my kids to Navy Pier to see Much Ado About Nothing at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. It is my very favorite Shakespeare play and I have seen two film versions and something like five theatre productions (wiliqueen's--twice or three times, one at MacMurray College when I lived in B'ville, a Civil War setting one up here, and I could swear at least one other somewhere, then today's). I've taught it no less than 15 times. I've seen the BBC film at least three times and the Branagh one so many that I can't even count.
Sooper Seekrit message to jennetj: THANK YOU!!!
So I have...opinions about this play.
I love the versatility of it, the ability for the play to be the happy-ending-fairly-fluffy delight that Branagh's is all the way to a dark and creepy play where a woman is coerced by society into a marriage with a man who went out of his way to try and ruin her life. I like that there are only a few lines on which those shifts hinge, that they turn on actors' and directors' choices, that the play can swing to either extreme or any balance between.
I love watching for what each production will do with certain key scenes, how much each production will play up certain aspects.
I love watching for how the actor playing Hero will deal with the fact that she's on stage nearly as much as Beatrice--but has something like half as many lines. Using the Dover Thrift Edition (which runs to about 78 pages) for the page and lines-of-dialogue and times speaking counts, Beatrice is onstage on 33 pages, Hero on 31. Beatrice has 106 times that she speaks (11 of which are spoken only to women, one to herself, and 8 of which while masked), Hero has 44 (of those, 25 are spoken with NO men in the scene, and 4 are while masked). In lines of text on the page (counted by verse lines or by lines when printed out in prose), Beatrice has 225 lines of text to speak while Hero has 123. Yes, I made a chart. What????
I am fascinated by whether Claudio is played as young, naive, and a bit stupid; as calculating and money-grubbing; as rash but well-meaning; as some combination or intersection of the above. I'm fascinated by seeing if a production goes for a darker or more sympathetic Claudio, if at the end the audience feels tremendously sorry for Hero for being stuck married to him, if he seems mean and vindictive enough that the audience worries about how often he'll beat her, if he seems like he could be distant but tolerable, if he seems like a good guy who screwed up and will try to make up for it forever.
I'm equally fascinated to see if SHE seems like she's now cowed by how bad things can get in nothing flat, with no provocation on her part, to the point where she'll play the Good Little Girl even more aggressively than she has before; if she's relatively unfazed by the chain of events and plans to continue playing the Good Little Girl where it serves her and being snarky around other women and as needed, standing up to and suprising Claudio here and there; if she's pissed at him and going to make him PAY for the rest of their lives for almost ruining her; if she's forgiving; if she's resigned.
I love to see how old Beatrice and Benedick are cast--just how long has this delightful and entertaining word dance been going on? In this production they were in their 30s or so, which was lovely. The lady who played Beatrice, at the talk-back, also pointed out that, whether Don Pedro is in earnest or not (the production didn't decide on that), Beatrice can't say yes because, as the wife of someone of his station, she'd have to behave herself in public in ways she's not willing to behave. NICE observation.
I love to see when a production chooses to set it. The one today was set in the 1830s deliberately so that the whole sense of HONOR would be so important to the guys, to Leonato, would be worth challenging one's friend to a duel to the death, would be worth a father wishign his daughter dead rather than dishonored; so that the incompetent, lower-class Watch and Constable could be believable in this small town; so that women were just barely beginning to START to gain education and bits of power and make statements in the European world. These were all fantastic reasons to set it in this time, and it also meant a number of interesting and mostly lovely costume choices. The men's military placket pants (yes, the ones like from Sense and Sensibility that make the guys look like they're wearing diapers) were the unfortunate part. The LOVELY parts were the Napoleonic-era military uniforms (coats with tails, shoulder fringes, knee breeches with tall boots), the pin-tucks everywhere, the soft crinolines under yards and yards of light flowered cottons, the not-nearly-as-evil-as-they-could-be full corsets that were not wasp-waist-ish, the darling straight-legged bloomers, the straw hats with hat pins, the ringlets in the women's hair...did I mention PIN-TUCKS everywhere on skirts, sleeves, tops, everywhere....
There was weird stuff about this production that made it not quite work for me, though I laughed myself into needing to rustle through my purse for my inhaler and had a fantastic time regardless.
Benedick was fantastic and energetic and funny and charasmatic and had perfect volume, delivery, and comic timing.
Unfortunately, Beatrice did not. A Much Ado where Benedick steals every scene and outshines Beatrice (who doesn't quite get on until after the "I would eat his heart in the marketplace" scene)...feels just wrong. I mean, this is BEATRICE. She should be winning each argument, even if only by a hair. She should be half a step to four steps ahead of everyone. She should be a delight. She was simply...good. Much better at the drama than the comedy, she really didn't hit her stride, like I say above, till 2/3 of the way through the play
Addendum to the above: I literally cannot tell if this evaluation is fair or if it ws just that this actress was losing out to the Emma Thompson in my head. I know competing with Emma can't have helped, but Benedick TOTALLY won me and had me forgetting about or rarely comparing to Branagh's delivery as Benedick and with Beatrice's delivery...I just kept thinking, "Hmm...not quite."
The production did a pretty good job of avoiding aping the Branagh production. The ways in which they didn't entirely avoid it: Don Pedro was black (and VERY attractive and had a GREAT voice), Don John was the dark-bearded physical type that Keanu Reeves was (but was much better in the part), Benedick did a silly voice at the masque to "throw off" Beatrice, Benedick protested then making "bird" sounds to "throw off" the guys as they trick him, Benedick was posing by crossing his legs then lounging all "alluring" when he's flirting with Beatrice in the "call you in to dinner" scene, his "Ha!" delivery after that scene was pure Branagh...not much else I can think of in delivery or other; they did a good job separating it. Of course, where Beatrice was concerned, this wasn't necessarily a GOOD thing, and I wonder if the actress, in TRYING to make different delivery and character choices than Emma Thompson, missed some good choices that might have been more similar than she wanted...or couldn't quite find her own "take" without too closely mimicing Emma.
They had a delightful prop bit with Beatrice reading a book at the beginning and laughing at it, then forgetting it on the bench. Benedick picks it up and reads it himself. We see him start at the beginning, be rather amused, and then we see him later and he's halfway through her book and still amused. In the scene with "Against my will I am sent to call you in to dinner," she sees that he has the book and confiscates it back.
I liked their choice to make it clear that Beatrice knew it was Benedick behind the mask, to make Beatrice and Benedick's "hiding" in the arbor completely. There was a lovely bit where Beatrice is hiding under a bench, Hero sits down on the bench, and then FLINGS her skirt over so it covers Beatrice's face, causing her, after Hero stands up again, to sneeze. Very cute.
They did not play at all with Hero as talking LOTS more in front of just women. They did not play up that Hero is playing the Perfect Good Little Girl in public, but in private has quite as sharp a tongue as Beatrice if not sharper. They did not choose whether Hero is so hard on Beatrice because she's jealous that Beatrice can be that free in public or if it's just who she really is out of the public eye or if she just enjoys the opportunity to zing Beatrice without consequences. The actress, at the talk-back, answered my student who asked how hard it was to be on stage constantly with so few lines by saying that she had conceived Hero as just not having much to say, as being more interested in listening and watching and, anyway, Beatrice is always entertaining them all so what's to be said; she doesn't need to talk. I thought that was a really difficult position to defend given the entire structure of the play in terms of Hero's behavior in public and private.
I was very sad that they totally threw away two of my favorite jokes. Ursula asks Hero in the arbor, "When are you married, lady?" Hero replies, "Why, everyday, tomorrow!" (After tomorrow she'll be married every day since she's getting married tomorrow and will then always remain married.) When Benedick shows up after Leonato and Antonio leave after sparring with Claudio and Don Pedro, I thought Claudio really threw away, rather than giving good punch to his (conceivably incredibly disrespectful) line of, "We had like to have our noses bitten off with two old men without teeth."
They chose not to create a scene to show what Claudio and Don Pedro saw in Hero's window. That's fine. They chose to have Claudio angry and upset at the wedding, but not flinging things around and only pushing Hero once (a move he telegraphed like THREE MINUTES before the "Nothing, except you render her again"). They chose to have the wedding facing the audience (so that we were spectators rather than wedding attendees), which totally worked...except that they didn't have attendees at the wedding from Messina. For me the lack of an audience really diminishes that scene and the impact it has and will ALWAYS HAVE on Hero's life; instead of her denunciation being witnessed by everyone she's ever known since she was BORN, only her and Claudio's closest friends and family witness the scene.
Claudio, when he hears about Hero's death seems...slightly dismayed. Maybe. But that was it. One of the students said, rather astutely, I think, that the actor playing Claudio had much more energy, volume, character, and presence when he came out to say, "Welcome and good morning" to the audience of high school students than he did as Claudio for the rest of the show.
Antonio was a delight and flirting shamelessly with everyone while doddering with his cane; he reminded me of a Ben Franklin type figure. Leonato actually tosses a glove at Claudio's feet after Hero's "death", hands off his coat, rolls up his sleeves, and prepares to fight. VERY nice blocking of that scene.
Claudio, while somewhat apologetic, never seems truly penitent or remorseful. He also doesn't seem entirely indifferent. He's kinda like, "She's dead? Bummer. Oops. Whatever." Don Pedro at least had the courtesy/grace to seem rather horrified.
Claudio never apologizes, not even in body language, and, in fact, is rather emphatic and somewhat whiny with his, "Yet, sinned I not but in mistaking." Again...this could work...but it didn't for me due to a lack of other elements to offset it.
After Claudio's accusation I need, in a production that's going to work for me, for Claudio to be penitent, punished, or cold/indifferent/calculating. If he's penitent, I can accept forgiveness from Hero (or not, as the production chooses). If he's punished, I can accept a Hero who doesn't demand some kind of apology. If he's cold or indifferent, I expect Hero to be reticent or reluctant or hurt or stiff or resigned.
What didn't work for me here is that Claudio wasn't penitent, punished, or apologetic, and NEITHER did Hero have ANY qualms about taking him right back. Now, granted, she HAS to marry him because if she doesn't, a pall will always hang over her honor and reputation and many will ever be entirely convinced of her innocence if the guy who accused her of being a slut doesn't marry her himself, thus showing (at least to many) that he no longer believes those accusations.
Even with that, I was troubled by the lady who played Hero saying in the talk-back, "Well, from the text you get clues that Hero has to be in love with Claudio; if she's going to forgive him at the end, she needs to love him." Okay...fine...but could she expect him to at least give her an apologetic look? Could SOMEONE in the play not pretend that, since things are working out, nothing bad happened or could have happend or seemed for two or three days like it was happening? Could SOMEONE be bothered by this? Claudio? Hero? Beatrice? After the talk-back, I really felt like the actress playing Hero just plain didn't get the character and how TRAPPED she is and how BAD this really could be and how, "Gee, well, I love him," shouldn't be enough to make it all okay after something this HUGE.
In this production, Claudio sees she's alive, falls to one knee in shock (and, I felt, partially so he doesn't look like an ass for being indifferent/unsurprised). She then declares, with a nice amount of self-possession and clarity, that she is innocent. Claudio responds very little. I saw no apology or apologetic look. I saw no, "Okay, you're now off the hook" from Hero...just, "I'm innocent. Okay, now that's solved."
After everyone starts dancing, this Claudio and Hero walk around the exterior of the thrust stage and meet in the center front. I understand the visual effectiveness of having them move with symmetry. But since they do, they merely meet in the middle. He doesn't give her the choice to come to him. She doesn't expect an apologetic look from him. They just meet and, last of the couples, start dancing while smiling happily.
Um...CONSEQUENCES????
Beatrice and Benedick had a satisfying resolution. VERY cute "Here's our own hands against our hearts." When Benedick declares that they should dance first, he and Beatrice stand to waltz and as the music begins, he pulls her from the casual 8-12 inches to RIGHT against him. Very visually cute. One of my students, when they finally kissed at the "Peace, I will stop your mouth," actually said, "FINALLY!" :-) The production did a REALLY good job of saving up the touching and kissing and closeness and only at the VERY last moment giving the audience that pay-off so that it counted.
So...a very mixed review for me.
We had this delightful discussion on the way back fromt eh tehatre on the bus with the students, and then transitioned to a delightfully intelligent and passionate discussion amongst the kids about Harry Potter. Days like this remind me why I love my job and students.
Sooper Seekrit message to jennetj: THANK YOU!!!
So I have...opinions about this play.
I love the versatility of it, the ability for the play to be the happy-ending-fairly-fluffy delight that Branagh's is all the way to a dark and creepy play where a woman is coerced by society into a marriage with a man who went out of his way to try and ruin her life. I like that there are only a few lines on which those shifts hinge, that they turn on actors' and directors' choices, that the play can swing to either extreme or any balance between.
I love watching for what each production will do with certain key scenes, how much each production will play up certain aspects.
I love watching for how the actor playing Hero will deal with the fact that she's on stage nearly as much as Beatrice--but has something like half as many lines. Using the Dover Thrift Edition (which runs to about 78 pages) for the page and lines-of-dialogue and times speaking counts, Beatrice is onstage on 33 pages, Hero on 31. Beatrice has 106 times that she speaks (11 of which are spoken only to women, one to herself, and 8 of which while masked), Hero has 44 (of those, 25 are spoken with NO men in the scene, and 4 are while masked). In lines of text on the page (counted by verse lines or by lines when printed out in prose), Beatrice has 225 lines of text to speak while Hero has 123. Yes, I made a chart. What????
I am fascinated by whether Claudio is played as young, naive, and a bit stupid; as calculating and money-grubbing; as rash but well-meaning; as some combination or intersection of the above. I'm fascinated by seeing if a production goes for a darker or more sympathetic Claudio, if at the end the audience feels tremendously sorry for Hero for being stuck married to him, if he seems mean and vindictive enough that the audience worries about how often he'll beat her, if he seems like he could be distant but tolerable, if he seems like a good guy who screwed up and will try to make up for it forever.
I'm equally fascinated to see if SHE seems like she's now cowed by how bad things can get in nothing flat, with no provocation on her part, to the point where she'll play the Good Little Girl even more aggressively than she has before; if she's relatively unfazed by the chain of events and plans to continue playing the Good Little Girl where it serves her and being snarky around other women and as needed, standing up to and suprising Claudio here and there; if she's pissed at him and going to make him PAY for the rest of their lives for almost ruining her; if she's forgiving; if she's resigned.
I love to see how old Beatrice and Benedick are cast--just how long has this delightful and entertaining word dance been going on? In this production they were in their 30s or so, which was lovely. The lady who played Beatrice, at the talk-back, also pointed out that, whether Don Pedro is in earnest or not (the production didn't decide on that), Beatrice can't say yes because, as the wife of someone of his station, she'd have to behave herself in public in ways she's not willing to behave. NICE observation.
I love to see when a production chooses to set it. The one today was set in the 1830s deliberately so that the whole sense of HONOR would be so important to the guys, to Leonato, would be worth challenging one's friend to a duel to the death, would be worth a father wishign his daughter dead rather than dishonored; so that the incompetent, lower-class Watch and Constable could be believable in this small town; so that women were just barely beginning to START to gain education and bits of power and make statements in the European world. These were all fantastic reasons to set it in this time, and it also meant a number of interesting and mostly lovely costume choices. The men's military placket pants (yes, the ones like from Sense and Sensibility that make the guys look like they're wearing diapers) were the unfortunate part. The LOVELY parts were the Napoleonic-era military uniforms (coats with tails, shoulder fringes, knee breeches with tall boots), the pin-tucks everywhere, the soft crinolines under yards and yards of light flowered cottons, the not-nearly-as-evil-as-they-could-be full corsets that were not wasp-waist-ish, the darling straight-legged bloomers, the straw hats with hat pins, the ringlets in the women's hair...did I mention PIN-TUCKS everywhere on skirts, sleeves, tops, everywhere....
There was weird stuff about this production that made it not quite work for me, though I laughed myself into needing to rustle through my purse for my inhaler and had a fantastic time regardless.
Benedick was fantastic and energetic and funny and charasmatic and had perfect volume, delivery, and comic timing.
Unfortunately, Beatrice did not. A Much Ado where Benedick steals every scene and outshines Beatrice (who doesn't quite get on until after the "I would eat his heart in the marketplace" scene)...feels just wrong. I mean, this is BEATRICE. She should be winning each argument, even if only by a hair. She should be half a step to four steps ahead of everyone. She should be a delight. She was simply...good. Much better at the drama than the comedy, she really didn't hit her stride, like I say above, till 2/3 of the way through the play
Addendum to the above: I literally cannot tell if this evaluation is fair or if it ws just that this actress was losing out to the Emma Thompson in my head. I know competing with Emma can't have helped, but Benedick TOTALLY won me and had me forgetting about or rarely comparing to Branagh's delivery as Benedick and with Beatrice's delivery...I just kept thinking, "Hmm...not quite."
The production did a pretty good job of avoiding aping the Branagh production. The ways in which they didn't entirely avoid it: Don Pedro was black (and VERY attractive and had a GREAT voice), Don John was the dark-bearded physical type that Keanu Reeves was (but was much better in the part), Benedick did a silly voice at the masque to "throw off" Beatrice, Benedick protested then making "bird" sounds to "throw off" the guys as they trick him, Benedick was posing by crossing his legs then lounging all "alluring" when he's flirting with Beatrice in the "call you in to dinner" scene, his "Ha!" delivery after that scene was pure Branagh...not much else I can think of in delivery or other; they did a good job separating it. Of course, where Beatrice was concerned, this wasn't necessarily a GOOD thing, and I wonder if the actress, in TRYING to make different delivery and character choices than Emma Thompson, missed some good choices that might have been more similar than she wanted...or couldn't quite find her own "take" without too closely mimicing Emma.
They had a delightful prop bit with Beatrice reading a book at the beginning and laughing at it, then forgetting it on the bench. Benedick picks it up and reads it himself. We see him start at the beginning, be rather amused, and then we see him later and he's halfway through her book and still amused. In the scene with "Against my will I am sent to call you in to dinner," she sees that he has the book and confiscates it back.
I liked their choice to make it clear that Beatrice knew it was Benedick behind the mask, to make Beatrice and Benedick's "hiding" in the arbor completely. There was a lovely bit where Beatrice is hiding under a bench, Hero sits down on the bench, and then FLINGS her skirt over so it covers Beatrice's face, causing her, after Hero stands up again, to sneeze. Very cute.
They did not play at all with Hero as talking LOTS more in front of just women. They did not play up that Hero is playing the Perfect Good Little Girl in public, but in private has quite as sharp a tongue as Beatrice if not sharper. They did not choose whether Hero is so hard on Beatrice because she's jealous that Beatrice can be that free in public or if it's just who she really is out of the public eye or if she just enjoys the opportunity to zing Beatrice without consequences. The actress, at the talk-back, answered my student who asked how hard it was to be on stage constantly with so few lines by saying that she had conceived Hero as just not having much to say, as being more interested in listening and watching and, anyway, Beatrice is always entertaining them all so what's to be said; she doesn't need to talk. I thought that was a really difficult position to defend given the entire structure of the play in terms of Hero's behavior in public and private.
I was very sad that they totally threw away two of my favorite jokes. Ursula asks Hero in the arbor, "When are you married, lady?" Hero replies, "Why, everyday, tomorrow!" (After tomorrow she'll be married every day since she's getting married tomorrow and will then always remain married.) When Benedick shows up after Leonato and Antonio leave after sparring with Claudio and Don Pedro, I thought Claudio really threw away, rather than giving good punch to his (conceivably incredibly disrespectful) line of, "We had like to have our noses bitten off with two old men without teeth."
They chose not to create a scene to show what Claudio and Don Pedro saw in Hero's window. That's fine. They chose to have Claudio angry and upset at the wedding, but not flinging things around and only pushing Hero once (a move he telegraphed like THREE MINUTES before the "Nothing, except you render her again"). They chose to have the wedding facing the audience (so that we were spectators rather than wedding attendees), which totally worked...except that they didn't have attendees at the wedding from Messina. For me the lack of an audience really diminishes that scene and the impact it has and will ALWAYS HAVE on Hero's life; instead of her denunciation being witnessed by everyone she's ever known since she was BORN, only her and Claudio's closest friends and family witness the scene.
Claudio, when he hears about Hero's death seems...slightly dismayed. Maybe. But that was it. One of the students said, rather astutely, I think, that the actor playing Claudio had much more energy, volume, character, and presence when he came out to say, "Welcome and good morning" to the audience of high school students than he did as Claudio for the rest of the show.
Antonio was a delight and flirting shamelessly with everyone while doddering with his cane; he reminded me of a Ben Franklin type figure. Leonato actually tosses a glove at Claudio's feet after Hero's "death", hands off his coat, rolls up his sleeves, and prepares to fight. VERY nice blocking of that scene.
Claudio, while somewhat apologetic, never seems truly penitent or remorseful. He also doesn't seem entirely indifferent. He's kinda like, "She's dead? Bummer. Oops. Whatever." Don Pedro at least had the courtesy/grace to seem rather horrified.
Claudio never apologizes, not even in body language, and, in fact, is rather emphatic and somewhat whiny with his, "Yet, sinned I not but in mistaking." Again...this could work...but it didn't for me due to a lack of other elements to offset it.
After Claudio's accusation I need, in a production that's going to work for me, for Claudio to be penitent, punished, or cold/indifferent/calculating. If he's penitent, I can accept forgiveness from Hero (or not, as the production chooses). If he's punished, I can accept a Hero who doesn't demand some kind of apology. If he's cold or indifferent, I expect Hero to be reticent or reluctant or hurt or stiff or resigned.
What didn't work for me here is that Claudio wasn't penitent, punished, or apologetic, and NEITHER did Hero have ANY qualms about taking him right back. Now, granted, she HAS to marry him because if she doesn't, a pall will always hang over her honor and reputation and many will ever be entirely convinced of her innocence if the guy who accused her of being a slut doesn't marry her himself, thus showing (at least to many) that he no longer believes those accusations.
Even with that, I was troubled by the lady who played Hero saying in the talk-back, "Well, from the text you get clues that Hero has to be in love with Claudio; if she's going to forgive him at the end, she needs to love him." Okay...fine...but could she expect him to at least give her an apologetic look? Could SOMEONE in the play not pretend that, since things are working out, nothing bad happened or could have happend or seemed for two or three days like it was happening? Could SOMEONE be bothered by this? Claudio? Hero? Beatrice? After the talk-back, I really felt like the actress playing Hero just plain didn't get the character and how TRAPPED she is and how BAD this really could be and how, "Gee, well, I love him," shouldn't be enough to make it all okay after something this HUGE.
In this production, Claudio sees she's alive, falls to one knee in shock (and, I felt, partially so he doesn't look like an ass for being indifferent/unsurprised). She then declares, with a nice amount of self-possession and clarity, that she is innocent. Claudio responds very little. I saw no apology or apologetic look. I saw no, "Okay, you're now off the hook" from Hero...just, "I'm innocent. Okay, now that's solved."
After everyone starts dancing, this Claudio and Hero walk around the exterior of the thrust stage and meet in the center front. I understand the visual effectiveness of having them move with symmetry. But since they do, they merely meet in the middle. He doesn't give her the choice to come to him. She doesn't expect an apologetic look from him. They just meet and, last of the couples, start dancing while smiling happily.
Um...CONSEQUENCES????
Beatrice and Benedick had a satisfying resolution. VERY cute "Here's our own hands against our hearts." When Benedick declares that they should dance first, he and Beatrice stand to waltz and as the music begins, he pulls her from the casual 8-12 inches to RIGHT against him. Very visually cute. One of my students, when they finally kissed at the "Peace, I will stop your mouth," actually said, "FINALLY!" :-) The production did a REALLY good job of saving up the touching and kissing and closeness and only at the VERY last moment giving the audience that pay-off so that it counted.
So...a very mixed review for me.
We had this delightful discussion on the way back fromt eh tehatre on the bus with the students, and then transitioned to a delightfully intelligent and passionate discussion amongst the kids about Harry Potter. Days like this remind me why I love my job and students.