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Thursday 3 November 2011

Watching and Reading Much Ado About Nothing

'When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should still live till I were married.'
Just to make clear, no I regrettably have not seen the David Tennant and Catherine Tate production, but nevertheless the performance I saw in Abergavenny was still impressive. The trick to performing Shakespeare I find is focusing on clarity - chances are at least half the audience will not be familiar with the ins and outs of the play or be able to fully understand the language. In this case the ensemble company did this very well and provided an entertaining evening for all. And it is them more than Shakespeare that deserves the plaudits.

The plot is fairly simple: a group of soldiers return from war to stay in the home of Leonardo, where some of them fall in love with his female family and servants. But as Shakespeare himself wrote, although not in this play, "the course of true love never did run smooth"

The recent convention of abridging Shakespeare's plays may mean there are few productions that contain the whole text, but it does make them more approachable - the quality is still up for debate. As Mark Lawson brought up in his interview with Tennant and Tate, lines like 'if I do not love her, I am a Jew' cannot be used in modern productions. The only possible exception is if, like Gilliam with Faust, a director chose to set the play in Nazi Germany - hardly likely to be a successful combination with any comedies, never mind Shakespeare's.

While the play contains many witty one-liners and fiery dialogue within Beatrice and Benedick's arguments, they did not provoke near as many laughs as the physical comedy from the actors, particularly when both Beatrice and Benedick are tricked into thinking they are in love with each other. Hiding behind increasingly ludicrous items and an attempted cat imitation were exaggerated to the right extent to bring the audience to hysteria. The lines usually only produced laughs through the fantastic timing and inflections used by the actors, such as one instant when a bitter Claudio bitterly talks to 'BeneDICK'

As such when reading the play, the wordplay is more humorous and benefits from being able to take time to understand the language. It also provides detail for the characters and plot, although in this case little more is needed. What is most striking is the similarities and differences in the experiences. The moments of exposition are tedious in both versions, particularly when Hero's fake death is planned - a dramatic contrivance that is near impossible to overcome. However the production did successufully manage at least one major diversion from the text. Claudio, lover of Hero, is tricked into thinking she cheats on him by Don John. Unlike in the script, the production showed the deception on stage. The only piece of dialogue was when the trickster cried to his lover, "You are my Hero" with Claudio's heartbreak being portrayed through some impressive acting. While it was tragic when I first watched it, it is simply stunning knowing that it's an insert.

I am generally of the opinion that seeing a performance of Shakespeare's plays, whether on film or stage, is the best possible way to gain an appreciation of the text; if it is designed to be performed, it is ridiculous to only judge it on a literate level. I genuinely feel Shakespeare was primarily a fantastic entertainer but this was the first time I saw a full-length performance - an area I aim to rectify in time. This relatively low-key production of a mostly lesser-known play leaves me desperate for more.

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