Pamela Mason

1968 — High Renaissance

Trevor Nunn’s production of Much Ado About Nothing at Stratford in 1968 can be seen as a reaction against the flamboyantly modern and controversial interpretation staged by Zeffirelli. Believing in the essentially English tone of the play he and Christopher Morley, the designer, set it in Renaissance England. The acting area was contained in a square box of scrim consisting of rectangular panels and fitted with sliding doors. This enclosed set was lit predominantly in the reds and russets that were also used for the costumes. The scheme created the mood of the ‘rose and flame of the high Renaissance’ (Birmingham Post, 15 November 1968). Changes in lighting could create a world that was warm and intimate, or one that was stifling, claustrophobic and more suggestive of Middleton or Webster. The lack of visual enchantment displeased some who did not expect to find Much Ado at home in an oppressive. sombre, vault-like environment.

1949 — A Fairy-Tale Fantasy

These are the opening words of John Gielgud’s chapter on Much Ado About Nothing in his book Stage Directions. He is referring to Henry Irving’s production in 1882 but the comment could equally be applied to his own Much Ado which opened at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre on 19 April 1949 with Diana Wynyard as Beatrice and Anthony Quayle as Benedick. It was to prove a production of outstanding stamina and popularity and it set a standard for the play that many argue has not been rivalled since. The opening season was so successful that the following year Gielgud revived it, combining his râle of director with that of Benedick and partnered by Peggy Ashcroft as Beatrice. In 1952 the production went to London and in 1955 it embarked on an extensive British and European tour returning to Stratford at the end of the year. In 1959, ten years after the original production was staged, Gielgud played Benedick, again under his own direction, in New York.

The Overhearing Scenes: ‘much ado about nothing’

The title, Much Ado About Nothing, might superficially suggest a great deal of needless fuss; perhaps it seems to be a throw-away title in the same vein as As You Like It and Twelfth Night or, What You Will. But as each of these has more profound resonance so does Much Ado About Nothing. The title contains a pun - ‘nothing’ and ‘noting’ - and its ambivalence is richly exploited in the play. The actions of both the main and the sub-plot centre upon ‘noting’, watching, overhearing and observing. Apart from the set-pieces of the Benedick and Beatrice overhearing scenes, the play offers a range of reports of overheard conversations.

Beatrice and Benedick: ‘A Kind of Merry War’

The popularity of Much Ado About Nothing is often attributed to the strength of the roles of Beatrice and Benedick. On one level their merry war is interpreted as the amusing wit play of sparring partners who hesitate to acknowledge or even recognise their mutual attraction. An audience delights in their eventual pairing and it is easy to understand why Charles II wrote ‘Benedik and Betrice’ against the title in his copy of the Second Folio.

1965 — Fornicate Sicilian Style!

The encouragement to ‘Fornicate Sicilian style!’ reflects the irreverent mood and vitality of the production of Much Ado staged by Franco Zeffirelli at the National Theatre. The message was the text of a telegram sent by John Dexter to the company for the opening on 16 February, 1965. The critics found the treatment highly controversial. On the one hand it was both hailed as stimulating, imaginative and hugely enjoyable, with matchless joie de vivre and on the other it was condemned as a flagrant distortion of the text: ‘the most unintelligent production of Shakespeare I have ever seen’ (Robert Speaight, ’Shakespeare in Britain’, Shakespeare Quarterly XVI, 1965 p. 313). It was influential, largely in a negative way since many subsequent productions reacted to its liberal reading by preferring a more traditional interpretation. An initial cause of controversy was Robert Graves’ re-working of the text. In The Sunday Times (14 February 1965) he explained that he had been commissioned to produce a stage version of Much Ado About Nothing that ‘the ordinary intelligent theatre audience could follow without assistance’. He employed a process he called ‘re-Shakespeareanising Shakespeare’ and about three hundred of his changes were adopted. For example Borachio’s lines: Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room, comes me the Prince and Claudio, hand in hand, in sad conference. (I iii 54–6) became: As I was employed in perfuming a musty room in the palace, along comes the Prince and Claudio in earnest conference.

The Church Scene: ‘Enough, I am Engaged’

The church scene is the dramatic climax of the play. Although we are prepared for the denunciation of Hero and can be secure in the knowledge that the villainy has been contained, it is, nevertheless, a most disturbing episode on stage. The setting, whether it is an elaborately constructed church with pews and altar or a space simply decorated with flowers and candles, elevates the action onto a spiritual plane where the rejection is both public humiliation and sacrilegious blasphemy. It so offends our codes of behaviour that we are stunned and horrified. The society of Messina enjoys its theatrical occasions and the wedding ceremony with its established text and recognised order is perhaps appropriated as another elaborately social, rather than spiritual, occasion.

1981–1990 — ‘Strike Up, Pipers’

The John Barton production became a touchstone for future productions and Michael Billington, reviewing the 1981 National Theatre production (with Penelope Wilton and Michael Gambon) judged it ‘exquisitely non-committal’ (Guardian, 17 August 1981) with no ‘emotional context’. Others praised the visual beauty of Alison Chitty’s designs: oak panelled interiors and Tudor brick exteriors. There was some inventiveness in staging the Benedick overhearing scene with the plotters in front of a solid brick wall and Benedick, equipped with a ladder, had to trundle backwards and forwards to be able to find them. A year later Stratford again struck theatrical gold with the play. Terry Hands directed Derek Jacobi and Sinead Cusack in a production which drew comparison with Gielgud’s in its visual charm. Jacobi was a gentlemanly Benedick very much in the witty-romantic Giel-. gud tradition. The mirror-panelled set provided an appropriately narcissistic setting for this self-regarding society (of the Garolean age), but the images were in soft focus and the prevailing impression was of warmth and joy. The final moments showed Benedick busily directing others, exuberant while Beatrice stood centre-stage, clutching his decorative sword-belt, gently amused and only a little wryly exasperated by his neglect.

Setting and Style

Much Ado About Nothing, was first printed in 1600 and the title(page announces that it was ‘sundrie times publikely acted by the right honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his semants’. In 1640 Leonard Digges praised its popularity in the preface to his edition of Shakespeare’s poems: let but Beatrice And Benedicke be seene, loe in a trice The Cockpit, Galleries, Boxes, all are full.

The Society of Messina: ‘Giddy with the Fashion’

Much Ado About Nothing opens with a family gathering. Leonato’s first words, ‘I learn in this letter’, may reflect a degree of pomposity but at least he is sharing the information with Hero, Beatrice and frequently other members of a household that is largely female. Yet the women defer to him and his sustained communication with the Messenger establishes formally the sense of a wider world in which society is essentially male-dominated. The Messenger does more than fulfil his titular function. He aids the exposition as he elaborates upon the news and provides a human focus for the flurry of interest from the women.

1976 — An Indian Summer

For the 1976 season at Stratford John Napier and Chris Dyer designed a permanent set with a wooden thrust platform and tiered balconies. This was a valiant attempt to transform a rather unwieldy proscenium arch theatre into something like an Elizabethan stage. The opening of Stratford’s third theatre, The Swan in May 1986, has since provided the Royal Shakespeare Company with a thrust stage but ten years earlier directors and designers were struggling to break down the dividing frame of the proscenium arch in the main auditorium. Colonial India was created (within the permanent set) with plenty of rush matting, by hanging muslin blinds on the wooden fascias and by erecting cotton awnings over the timbered balconies. The opening sequence established the setting and mood of John Barton’s production. As turbaned Indians padded silently across the stage bearing a carcase slung on a pole between them, the Friar paused to exchange a word with Leonato. One of the waiting women, settled comfortably on the floor, strummed gently on a guitar. Beatrice (Judi Dench) entered through a beaded doorway to convey, simply by moving her hand to her throat and stretching her neck, the unmistakeable oppression of heat, before she joined the other ladies sitting sewing.