“REVENGE IN SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS”

“MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING” – LECTURE/CLASS

WRITTEN: In the second half of 1598 or 99 (no later because the role of Dogberry is sometimes replaced by the name of Will Kemp, the actor who played the role; Kemp left the Lord Chamberlain’s Men in 1599.

QUARTO: A Quarto edition of the play appeared in 1600.

GENRE: “Tragicomic”

SOURCE: “Completely and entirely unhistorical”

VERSION: “Shakespeare’s earliest version of the more serious story of the man who mistakenly believes his partner has been unfaithful to him”.

SUCCESS: No records of early performance but allusions to its success.

HIGHLIGHT: Revived in 1613 for a Court performance at Whitehall before King James’s daughter Princess Elizabeth and her husband in May 1613.

AFTER: “Performed only sporadically until David Garrick’s acclaimed revival in 1748

CRITICS: 1891 – A.B. Walkley: “a composite picture of the multifarious, seething, fermenting life, the polychromatic phantasmagoria of the Renaissance.”

1905 – George Bernard Shaw: “a hopeless story, pleasing only to lovers of the illustrated police papers

BENEDICTS: Anthony Quayle, John Gielgud, Michael Redgrave, Donald Sinden

BEATRICES: Peggy Ashcroft, Margaret Leighton, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith

RECENT: “…a boost in recent fortunes with the 1993 film version directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Branagh and Emma Thompson.”

SETTING: Messina in northwestern Sicily at the narrow strait separating Sicily from Italy.

YEAR: Not indicated but after 1285 when the King of Aragon in eastern Spain married the only child of the former German ruler of Sicily and “established himself firmly as the first ruler of a dynasty lasting 500 years”. ACTION: Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon (eastern Spain) and his followers return to visit old friend Leonato, Governor of Messina, after “suppressing a small rebellion”; love is in the air.

STRUCTURE: “The triangle of Don John (deceiving villain), Claudio (credulous lover or husband) and Hero (slandered fiancé or wife) reappears in Iago, Othello and Desdemona and again in Iachimo, Posthumus and Imogen in “Cymbeline”.”

NOTE: Note the many mentions in the script of key words: “vengeful”, “vengeance”, “mischief”, “defiled” plus reference to ATE, Greek goddess of vengeance and mischief as well as FURIES, vengeful spirits of Greek legend “that pursued those guilty of great crimes and were probably personifications of the mad. Oddly, none of these mentions refer to Don John directly.

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F O R C L A S S E X P L O R A T I O N : D O N J O H N

FACT: Despite the play being entirely “unhistorical”, there was indeed a “Don John of Austria” who never rebelled against his brother and is best known for his victory over the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto and his death in 1578 at the age of 31.

FACT: Shakespeare’s Don John is the step-brother of Don Pedro, the Prince of Aragon in Eastern Spain; Shakespeare’s gives us no other information about their parental history.

FACT: Don Pedro and his followers arrive in Messina from suppressing a bloodless rebellion (more “formalistic skirmish”) against the Turks led by and ignominiously lost by his illegitimate step brother, Don John. (No further information is shared about the cause of the rebellion nor why Don John would be the opposing leader.)

NEW: As the loser of the skirmish Don John has had to reconcile himself with his step- brother and arrives with the winning brigade of Don Pedro’s followers including the notable-in-battle Claudio, “intelligent and gallant”.

NEW: At least Don Pedro, Don John and Benedict have visited the home of Leonato, the Governor of Messina, in the past; they are known by Leonato and his family.

NEW: Don John: “It must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain”.

NEW: Conrade (Don John’s companion): “I wonder that thou being (as thou say’st thou art” born under Saturn, goest about to apply a more medicine…” (Those born under Saturn are characterized as “saturnine…grave, gloomy and slow.”)

NEW: Don John feels a particular hate for Claudio who was so prominent in the battle that defeated him; if some mischief can be worked up at the young man’s expense, so much the better. NEW: Other new information from the play pointing to Don John?

DISCUSS: Considering the facts and the new information, WHY is Don John “the bastard malcontent of almost motiveless malice”?

DISCUSS Don John’s first plot – Informing Claudio that the masked Don Pedro had indeed spoken for himself in wooing Hero and not on Claudio’s behalf.

DISCUSS With the miscarriage of his first plot, how does the plot to frame Hero come about?

DISCUSS The effects of the successful second plot on each character – who and how?

DISCUSS And, Don John??

DISCUSS Benedict’s news to Don Pedro and eventually to the entire group that Don John has fled Messina combined with the confessions of Borachio and Conrade.

DISCUSS The fate of Don John.

(TRIVIA): “Beatrice” means “she who makes happy” and “Benedick” means “blessed”; Shakespeare could not have chosen those names accidentally!

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F O R O P T I O N A L V I E W I N G…..

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Filmed at a live stage performance) Wyndhams Theater, London 2001 With David Tennant & Catherine Tate Contemporary Setting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwy2a6ScZ-c

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Film Released 1993 With David Tennant & Catherine Tate YouTube Film Rental $3.99 + Tax