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.