Much Ado Review

I really enjoyed the Classic Stage Theater’s production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.  Like many of Shakespeare’s other plays, Much Ado is very confusing with many plots and subplots, lots of characters, tricks, pretend and mistaken identities.  In Much Ado, Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into falling in love.  Don Jon tricks Claudio into thinking that Hero is unfaithful.  Hero pretends to be dead.  Claudio agrees to marry Hero’s cousin who turns out to be Hero.  But since it was a comedy, that all seemed more appropriate. 

I liked how this production made the comical parts of Much Ado even funnier.  This production was set in the 1920s and included jazz music.  The acting was exaggerated, energetic and loud. The dancing and singing made the play fun and entertaining. The costumes were unexpected with the women wearing 1920s flapper dresses.  The happy ending of a double wedding was intensified by “When the Saints Go Marching In!”  The wild and festive 1920s helped set the mood of this play.

Attending a performance of Much Ado where we could see and hear the play made Shakespeare’s words and story much more understandable.  Even though the performance used Shakepeare’s language because it was set in a more recent time period, it seemed more modern.  While I wasn’t always able to understand exactly what the characters were saying, I could tell what they meant.  Like Beatrice and Benedick were definitely insulting each other!  By seeing the action and watching the actors faces, movements and gestures, I could follow the story much better.  The  music, dancing, singing and costumes all helped as well.  Watching the play made it more alive and really the way Shakespeare himself intended it to be.

From my perspective

I finally read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.  My mother has been talking about this book after she read it for a class in graduate school on special education so I knew that the book was about a boy with Asperger’s.  While I thought a book about someone with a severe disability would be difficult to understand and hard to relate to, it actually was easy to read and I was able to empathize with the main character.

The book is narrated by Christopher Boone, a 15 year old English boy with Asperger’s syndrome.  One night he discovers that the neighbor’s dog has been murdered with a garden fork.  He decides to find out who killed the dog and write a book about it.  While it sounds like a murder mystery, it’s really a book about Christopher and another mystery about his family.

            The book is written from the point of view of Christopher.  We learn a lot about him from what he says and does and from the structure of the book. He introduces himself as “knowing all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,057.”  He doesn’t like strange places or people he doesn’t know.  He doesn’t like to be touched.  If his senses get overloaded, he will curl into a ball and groan.  He hates the colors yellow and brown so much so that he can’t eat or touch anything yellow or brown.  He needs order and will do math problems in his head just to calm down.  Time is very important to Christopher.  He times everything that he does.  Over the course of the book, you know Christopher so well that you can anticipate how he will react to the events and people around him.  As unusual as he is, you understand his perspective because you are immersed in it.

Christopher’s point of view is even noticeable in the structure of the book. The chapters are numbered in prime numbers because he likes the order they provide. Because Christopher is a visual learner, he uses visuals to explain things.  The book is filled with different fonts (bold and italics) and charts, graphs, mathematical equations, pictures and diagrams.  Like Christopher, sometimes the book jumps around from subject to subject and contains run-on sentences showing the way Christopher thinks.  The book is very repetitive because Christopher is repetitive and consistent.  The author cleverly uses Christopher’s disability as a writing style to allow you to understand Christopher as well as to think and feel like Christopher.

            While Christopher has an unusual perspective due to his disability, it soon becomes normal to the reader.  By providing detailed explanations of Christopher’s thoughts and feelings about everything from physics to the supernatural, I could really understand and empathize with Christopher.  Underneath all of Christopher’s quirky characteristics, Christopher makes sense.  In contrast, the behaviors of the other “normal” characters in the book, like Christopher’s father and mother seem more odd than Christopher’s behavior.  Christopher’s mother had an affair and then abandoned him.   Christopher’s father makes up a story that his mother has died.   Christopher’s mother’s abandonment and father’s lie seem more crazy than Christopher’s peculiarity.   The book has taught me to look beyond the surface of people’s behavior and try to understand their perspective

Is it love?

Romeo and Juliet is probably one of the most famous love stories in the world.  But reading it closely, I’ve realized that I have no idea why Romeo and Juliet love each other.  I’m not even sure that they do!

Romeo first sees Juliet at a party dancing.  Before he even speaks to her, he is in love.  It seems to be that he is only impressed by her beauty.  He compares her to a jewel, more beautiful than the other ladies.  “Did my heart love till now?  Forswear it, sight, For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night”(Act 1 Sc. 5 p. 53, l. 59-60).  In Romeo’s first conversation with Juliet, he takes her hand to kiss (p. 57).  The next time he sees her, he compares her to the sun, her eyes to the stars, and to a bright angel (Act 2 Sc. 2 pp. 70-71).  Romeo declares his love for Juliet after hearing Juliet declare her love for him. (p. 73).  Romeo would rather die than be without her love (p. 75).

Likewise, after Juliet’s first conversation with Romeo, she declares her love for him.  “My only love sprung from my only hate . . . that I must love a loathed enemy” (Act 1 Sc. 5 p. 61  l. 152-155).  And the next time Juliet speaks with Romeo, she tells him of her “true love passion” for him (Act 2 Sc. 2 p. 75 l.109).

Much of the rest of that second conversation is just about Romeo and Juliet’s “deep” and “infinite” love for each other based on nothing! That second conversation ends with them planning to marry (pp. 79-83).  But despite all the beautiful words, there is nothing that explains why they love each other.  Romeo and Juliet just met.  They have only spoken twice to each other.  While they talk of love, there seems to be no basis for it.

Maybe Romeo and Juliet love each other because they are not allowed to love each other.  Their families are enemies and they are forbidden to be together.  Maybe it’s just teenage rebellion.  Children doing things that their parents won’t allow.  Maybe they are just both in love with being in love.  The book starts with Romeo being in love with someone else.  Maybe Romeo is on the rebound!  Maybe Juliet, who has just learned that she’s to be married to a rich man chosen by her parents, is looking for her own love.  How will their love develop or will it end before it grows?

Dear Maria

Dear Maria, 

I’ve just read the first scene of Romeo and Juliet and if it weren’t for your story, I would be totally confused! Even knowing your sad story (and all the songs) I’m still lost!

I’ve observed that Shakespeare’s language is much different than the language I use today and the way you spoke in the 50s.  Even though I understand many of the words, the order and way Shakespeare puts them together is confusing. It is also hard to read Romeo and Juliet because it is all dialogue and long monologues. There isn’t any narration to help me understand what’s happening. Because much of it is in rhyme it sounds nice but it doesn’t always make sense to me.

At least I know and understand the main plot. I know that the Montagues (Romeo’s family) and the Capulets (Juliet’s family) are enemies and fighting. I also know that the Prince is frustrated and wants them to stop fighting and disturbing the peace in Verona. I also know that Romeo is sad and lovesick and that his family is very worried about him.

My experience reading Shakespeare hasn’t been the greatest so far. The language is difficult, and I’m still not sure what’s happening line by line. But I know the plot and what is going to happen thanks to watching and hearing your story millions of times and that’s really helped me.

If you are interested in reading the original version of your story, you will need to really take it slow. Stop and think every couple of lines and re read when you are confused. It also sometimes helps to read on and understand the big picture instead of focusing on all the individual words. I think that the more you read Shakespeare, the more you understand Shakespeare. Or at least I hope so!

Right now Romeo and Juliet is more work than it is worth. The language is very difficult to understand, and the plot seems slow moving and boring.  I think that it helps that I’ve seen or heard of other plays written by Shakespeare. Those plays were also more interesting than Romeo and Juliet maybe because they were comedies or scary.  But I’m still wondering if I understand your story so well, why don’t understand this?