“Here’s our own hands against our hearts.” —Benedick, Act 5, Scene 4
Long considered one of Shakespeare’s sunniest comedies, Much Ado About Nothing in fact anticipates the problem comedies and the dramatist’s impending interest in exploring social conflicts. Unlike in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It, Shakespeare here presents no green world, setting the scene entirely within the courtly surroundings of Messina. There are no uncanny elements, and instead of nighomnipotent onstage directors such as Oberon and Prospero, Shakespeare here gives over the plot complications to two fallible human overseers, the Dons Pedro and John. Perhaps unsurprisingly, both princes concoct private plays—one comic, one tragic—that turn out disastrously. And instead of relying on the magic madness of nature that induces love, Shakespeare instead relies on that social form of currency and transformation: wit. In Beatrice and Benedick, the wittiest of his couples, Shakespeare creates the engine for much of Restoration and screwball comedy, our most elevated forms of romance. But it is the more troubled pairing of Claudio and Hero, and their comi-tragic subplot that balances the play and suggests the range of its social inquiry. In Much Ado About Nothing, the membrane between social niceties and violent, irrational rages is disconcertingly thin. Almost all of the characters find themselves in positions where they stop pretending to be someone else and confront deep reservoirs of emotion lying beneath the social mask. “For a moment,” writes Frank Kermode, on the famous ‘kill Claudio’ scene, “they converse like persons who have forgotten their reputations.”
Yale School of Drama presents
Much Ado About Nothing
by william shakespeare directed by devin brain
—Drew Lichtenberg, Production Dramaturg
2010–11 season
The Studio Series productions are designed to be learning experiences that complement classroom work, providing a medium for students at Yale School of Drama to combine their individual talents and energies toward the staging of collaboratively created works. Your attendance meaningfully completes that process.
drama.yale.edu
Thursday, february 10, 4PM Friday, february 11, 4PM and 8PM Saturday, february 12, 4PM ISEMAN THEATER 1156 CHAPEL STREET