Much Ado About Nothing

Content Group

Overview
Much Ado About Nothing, California Shakespeare Theater, 2003

Much Ado About Nothing is celebrated for its contentious pair of lovers, Beatrice and Benedick (see Frances Abington, Anna Cora Ritchie and Ellen Terry as Beatrice, and David Garrick, E. L. Davenport and Henry Irving as Benedick), whose mutual skirmishes are resolved in shared defense of Beatrice's friend Hero, slandered by her fiancé, Claudio, friend of Benedick. The plot involves a series of contrived overhearings (or "notings"—hence the title) which foster the love of Beatrice and Benedick, but mislead Claudio (see our staging of Act 3, Scene 3). Critics censure the supposed central plot involving the undistinguished characters of Hero and Claudio (see John Forbes Robertson as Claudio and Viola Tree as Hero), but Shakespeare uses them merely as foils and catalysts of the more jaded, witty couple, who have provided the norm for most later literary love affairs evolving from seeming contentiousness, such as Mirabell and Millamant in William Congreve's comedy The Way of the World or Elizabeth and Darcy in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and perhaps even Martha and George in Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (see the essay in H. M. Richmond, Shakespeare's Sexual Comedy). The distinctive setting in Messina bizarrely matches the locale of the paranoid victor over the Turks at Lepanto (1572), the Bastard Don John of Austria, who unexpectedly figures as the villain of the play (he first planned the Armada against England). Some of the farcical humor derives from the incompetent police (forerunners of the Keystone Kops; compare our staging of these characters at the Globe with this 1976 RSC production) led by Dogberry (see John Gilbert in the role), who resolve the lovers' misapprehensions; but the play's great delight is the progress of the affair between Beatrice and Benedick, which has been a favorite of leading performers (compare St. Louis 2007, CST 2003, RSC 1990 and RSC 1976 with Mr. and Mrs. Kean, Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, and Lewis Waller and Winifred Emery), as famously illustrated by the enthusiastically revived production starring Antony Quayle and John Gielgud with various actresses: Diana Wynyard, Margaret Leighton, and Peggy Ashcroft. It was also the script for UC Berkeley performances at the rebuilt Shakespeare Globe Theatre in London (see Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (1996) and a video of the production). See also Much Ado About Nothing: Researching a Production History.

Images
Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe, Berkeley Shakespeare Program, 1996
Much Ado About Nothing, Berkeley Shakespeare Program, 1996
Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe, Berkeley Shakespeare Program, 1996
Much Ado About Nothing, Berkeley Shakespeare Program, 1996
Much Ado About Nothing, Bard on the Beach, 2004
Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis, 2007
Much Ado About Nothing, Ellen Terry as Beatrice, 19th Century
Much Ado About Nothing, Benson's Shakespeare Festival, 20th Century
Much Ado About Nothing, Beerbohm Tree as Benedick, 19th-20th Century
Much Ado About Nothing, Knickerbocker Theatre, 1904
Much Ado About Nothing, Stratford Festival, 1980
Much Ado About Nothing, California Shakespeare Company, 2003
Much Ado About Nothing, California Shakespeare Company, 2003
Much Ado About Nothing: Ellen Terry as Beatrice
Much Ado About Nothing: Johnston Forbes Robertson (1853-1937) as Claudio
Much Ado About Nothing: Viola Tree (1884-1938) as Hero

Pages

Slideshows
An Elizabethan Outdoor Much Ado About Nothing (1996)
Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (1996)
Much Ado About Nothing: Researching a Production History
Renaissance Marriages: Venice, the Veneto, and Italy
Bibliography

Alexander, Peter, ed. Much Ado about Nothing. London: BBC, 1986.

Als, Hilton. "Much Ado in Messina: Star Turns in a Shakespeare Comedy." Review of Much Ado About Nothing, directed by David Esbjornson, Delacorte Theatre, Central Park, New York. New Yorker, July 26, 2004.

Bron, Eleanor. "Much Ado About Nothing." Shakespeare in Perspective, vol. 2, edited by Roger Sales, 271-79. London: Ariel Books/BBC, 1985.

Brouillette, Liane. "The Americanization of Much Ado." On Stage Studies 14 (1991): 27-34.

Bate, Jonathan. "Dying to Live in Much Ado About Nothing." In Surprised by Scenes: Essays in Honour of Professor Yasunari Takahashi, edited by Y. Takada, 69-85. Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1994.

Berger, Harry, Jr. "Against the Sink-a-Pace: Sexual and Family Politics in Much Ado About Nothing." Shakespeare Quarterly 33 (1982): 302-13.

Coursen, H. R. "Anachronism and Papp's Much Ado." Shakespeare on Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews, edited by J. C. Bulman and H. R. Coursen, 151-55. Hanover, NH; London: University Press of New England, 1988.

Cox, J. F. "The Stage Representation of the 'Kill Claudio' Sequence in Much Ado About Nothing." Shakespeare Survey 32 (1979): 27-36.

Cox, J. F., ed. Much Ado About Nothing. Shakespeare in Production. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Crowl, Samuel. "The Marriage of Shakespeare and Hollywood: Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing." In Spectacular Shakespeare: Critical Theory and Popular Cinema, edited by Courtney Lehmann and Lisa S. Starks, 110-24. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 2002.

Everett, Barbara. "Much Ado About Nothing: The Unsociable Comedy." In English Comedy, edited by Michael Cordner, Peter Holland and John Kerrigan, 186-202. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Foakes, R. A., ed. Much Ado About Nothing. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968.

Fisher, James. "Theatrical Revolution: Edward Gordon Craig's Much Ado About Nothing (1903)." Text and Presentation 10 (1990): 27-34.

Friedman, Michael D. "'For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion': Fashion and Much Ado about Nothing." Text and Performance Quarterly 13 (1993): 267-82.

Gajowski, Evelyn. "'Sigh No More, Ladies, Sigh No More': Genesis Deconstructed in Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing." JTD: Journal of Theatre and Drama 56 (1999-2000): 101-26.

Greiner, Norbert. "Beaucoup de bruit pour rien de Wieland à Goethe: Les débuts du théâtre de mise en scène." Revue germanique internationale 5 (2007): 51-67.

Hayes, Janice. "Those 'soft and delicate desires': Much Ado and the Distrust of Women." In The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, edited by Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, 79-99. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979.

Humphreys, A. R., ed. Much Ado About Nothing. London: Methuen, 1981.

Jenkins, Harold. "The Ball Scene in Much Ado About Nothing." In Shakespeare: Text, Language, Criticism: Essays in Honour of Marvin Spevack, edited by Bernhard Fabian and Kurt Tetzeli von Rosador, 98-117. Hildesheim; New York: Olms-Weidmann, 1987.

Lehmann, Courtney. "Much Ado About Nothing? Shakespeare, Branagh, and the 'Nation Popular' in the Age of Multinational Capital." Textual Practice 12 (1998): 1-22.

Lewalski, Barbara. "Love, Appearance, and Reality: Much Ado About Something." Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 8 (1968): 235-51.

Mares, F. H. "Stage History." In Much Ado About Nothing, 10-41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Marker, Lise-Lone. "Shakespeare and Naturalism: David Belasco Produces The Merchant of Venice and Much Ado about Nothing." Theatre Research 10 (1969): 17-32.

Mason, Pamela. "Much Ado About Nothing": Text and Performance. London: Macmillan, 1992.

McKewin, Carole. "Counsels of Gall and Grace: Intimate Conversations between Women in Shakespeare's Plays." In The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, edited by Carolyn Ruth Swift Lenz, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely, 117-32. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979.

Myhill, Nova. "Spectatorship in/of Much Ado About Nothing." Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 39, no. 2 (1999): 291-312.

Omerod, David. "Faith and Fashion in Much Ado About Nothing." Shakespeare Survey 25 (1972): 93-106.

Paulson, M. G. Lepanto: Fact, Fiction and Fantasy. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986.

Richmond, Hugh Macrae. "Much Ado About Nothing." Review of Much Ado About Nothing, California Shakespeare Theater. Shakespeare Bulletin 22, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 97-9.

Richmond, Hugh M. "Much Ado About Notables." Shakespeare Studies 12 (1979): 49-63.

Richmond, Hugh Macrae. "Two Sicilies: Ethnic Conflict in Much Ado." Shakespeare Newsletter 57, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2007): 17-18.

Much Ado About Nothing at Talkin' Broadway.

Taylor, Michael. "Much Ado About Nothing: The Individual in Society." Essays in Criticism 23, no. 2 (1973): 146-53.

Warren, Roger. Much Ado about Nothing: A Performing Edition. London: Oberson, 2005.

Zitner, S. P., ed. Much Ado About Nothing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.

  • 3088 reads

Please offer comments and suggestions on any aspects the site to: Director Hugh Richmond at richmondh77@gmail.com. See samples at the site Blog.

Except where otherwise specified, all written commentary is © 2016, Hugh Macrae Richmond.