----- -- - Shakespeare Produced 'MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING' Eileen Lund di sc usses her pro- duclion 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 Illn All ' "l J OI IT IICHlIIlt .1 t;'{ WlllIAIT ' [ )I ! Al(mlf :\I)t memorable occasion when I saw the RSC's production with Don- ald 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 confront- ed 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 melo- drama 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 Clau- dio 's behalf. This is the first of many deceptions which run as a thcme throughout the play. PAGE 14 Despit e malicious interference by the Prince 's broth e 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 c haracters of Shakespeare 's invention who have been profess- ing 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. s tumble on the truth of the plot to blacken Hero's honour but are unabl e to convince Leonato of the impor- tance of their di scove ry 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 com- mitting 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 s uggests 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- be rry's atte mpts 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 co nfronted with his villainy, He ro '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 s honour. 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 ga ng- land. 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 h ea ds of most of our audiences and would only impede th e development of the plot. In rehearsals I encouraged the cast to concentrate on the overall meaning behind a speech. speak- ing the Iines as quickly and natu- rally as possible, without any play on the words. We also tried. wherev er possible , to make points visually - moves, gestures , body language in general would be a vital part of our actors' co mmuni- cation 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 wa s neccssary to fill the 17 m e n ' s paris, and th e Production Se cre- tary r ece ived unexpected eleva- tion wh en ' Ursula' was forced to drop out. We had an early read through at the beginning of Jan- uary to establish the script so that th e 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 person- ality-type to build their character- isation upon, within a context which would also be familiar to most of the audience. Providing s hared 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 classi- cal 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 deliv e r it effectively ; the classical allusions would go rehearsals in earnest on 27th Jan- uary. This gave us the usual six- week rehearsal period for an Arts Group production, but to a cast stru gg 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 tempta- tion to match movement and ges- tures to the style of the language Amateur 51llge October 1 99 1