Much Ado About Nothing
by William Shakespeare
Presented by the
St. Prophyrius Drama Society
of the Holy Dormition Bulgarian Orthodox Church
Directed by Fr. David Skopp
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Synopsis of the play
Leonato, a kindly, respectable nobleman, lives in the idyllic Italian town of Messina. Leonato shares his house with his lovely young daughter, Hero, his playful, clever niece, Beatrice, and his elderly brother, Antonio. As the play begins, Leonato prepares to welcome some friends home from a war. The friends include Don Pedro, a prince who is a close friend of Leonato, and two fellow soldiers: Claudio, a well-respected young nobleman, and Benedick, a clever man who constantly makes witty jokes, often at the expense of his friends. Don John, Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother, is part of the crowd as well. Don John is sullen and bitter, and makes trouble for the others.
When the soldiers arrive at Leonato’s home, Claudio quickly falls in love with Hero. Meanwhile, Benedick and Beatrice resume the war of witty insults that they have carried on with each other in the past. Claudio and Hero pledge their love to one another and decide to be married. To pass the time in the week before the wedding, the lovers and their friends decide to play a game. They want to get Beatrice and Benedick, who are clearly meant for each other, to stop arguing and fall in love. Their tricks prove successful, and Beatrice and Benedick soon fall secretly in love with each other.
But Don John has decided to disrupt everyone’s happiness. He has his companion Borachio make love to Margaret, Hero’s serving woman, at Hero’s window in the darkness of the night, and he brings Don Pedro and Claudio to watch. Believing that he has seen Hero being unfaithful to him, the enraged Claudio humiliates Hero by suddenly accusing her of lechery on the day of their wedding and abandoning her at the altar. Hero’s stricken family members decide to pretend that she died suddenly of shock and grief and to hide her away while they wait for the truth about her innocence to come to light. In the aftermath of the rejection, Benedick and Beatrice finally confess their love to one another. Fortunately, the night watchmen overhear Borachio bragging about his crime. Dogberry and Verges, the heads of the local police, ultimately arrest both Borachio and Conrad, another of Don John’s followers. Everyone learns that Hero is really innocent, and Claudio, who believes she is dead, grieves for her.
Leonato tells Claudio that, as punishment, he wants Claudio to tell everybody in the city how innocent Hero was. He also wants Claudio to marry Leonato’s “niece”—a girl who, he says, looks much like the dead Hero. Claudio goes to church with the others, preparing to marry the mysterious, masked woman he thinks is Hero’s cousin. When Hero reveals herself as the masked woman, Claudio is overwhelmed with joy. Benedick then asks Beatrice if she will marry him, and after some arguing they agree. The joyful lovers all have a merry dance before they celebrate their double wedding.
Director’s commentary
A wise man once said “The Devil makes his plans and men carry them out”. Shakespeare has indeed dealt with this theme in such tragedies as Macbeth and Othello, but in Much Ado About Nothing he gives us a comedy which features characters, who through their passionate dispositions become vulnerable to the wiles of the demons. These men are fooled, as sometimes are we, by situations that have the semblance of truth but are in fact not true at all. Sometimes these scenarios are played out before our eyes, and other times in the theater of our minds. We imagine sideways glances given by friends, or we might misinterpret a comment, a look, or even an email and we start to play out imagined scenarios which find us either victimized or revenged. A perceived slight by a friend or boss can send us into a tailspin. Almost always these things are finally revealed to be “much ado about nothing.”
In this play, we see how a coven of trouble makers reek havoc on the happiness of innocent people. But these devils would have no power at all unless they could find people who, despite all reasonable impulses, give themselves over to the various passions that men are heir to. In the play we see Claudio, already prone to jealousy, choosing to believe that which his eyes show him rather then what is in his heart. In making this choice, he causes much heartache for himself and all those around him.
In the play Shakespeare challenges us not to believe our eyes, because what appears as truth may in fact turn out to be the opposite. Beatrice and Benedict seem to hate one another when in actuality they are in love. Don Pedro appears to be wooing Hero for himself when he is securing her for Claudio. Don John “that devil, my master” appears to want to help Claudio, but actually seeks his overthrow. Hero seems to be false, but is in fact true. Hero appears to be dead, but is alive.
Unlike the tragedies of Othello and McBeth, Much Ado About Nothing presents us not with a tragic ending, but an ending in which Good overcomes Evil, Reconciliation is wrought through humility and through repentance Man’s weakness is made into strength. For as Benedict concludes, “Man is a giddy thing!”
Character List
Beatrice (Rebekah Tolbert) - Leonato’s niece and Hero’s cousin. Beatrice is “a pleasant-spirited lady” with a very sharp tongue. She is generous and loving, but, like Benedick, continually mocks other people with elaborately tooled jokes and puns. She wages a war of wits against Benedick and often wins the battles. At the outset of the play, she appears content never to marry.
Benedick (Gregory Skopp) - An aristocratic soldier who has recently been fighting under Don Pedro, and a friend of Don Pedro and Claudio. Benedick is very witty, always making jokes and puns. He carries on a “merry war” of wits with Beatrice, but at the beginning of the play he swears he will never fall in love or marry.
Claudio (Walter Howard)- A young soldier who has won great acclaim fighting under Don Pedro during the recent wars. Claudio falls in love with Hero upon his return to Messina. His unfortunately suspicious nature makes him quick to believe evil rumors and hasty to despair and take revenge.
Hero (Beth McLeester) - The beautiful young daughter of Leonato and the cousin of Beatrice. Hero is lovely, gentle, and kind. She falls in love with Claudio when he falls for her, but when Don John slanders her and Claudio rashly takes revenge, she suffers terribly.
Don Pedro (Aaron Krive) - An important nobleman from Aragon, sometimes referred to as “Prince.” Don Pedro is a longtime friend of Leonato, Hero’s father, and is also close to the soldiers who have been fighting under him—the younger Benedick and the very young Claudio. Don Pedro is generous, courteous, intelligent, and loving to his friends, but he is also quick to believe evil of others and hasty to take revenge. He is the most politically and socially powerful character in the play.
Leonato (Gabriel Alberigi) - A respected, well-to-do, elderly noble at whose home, in Messina, Italy, the action is set. Leonato is the father of Hero and the uncle of Beatrice. As governor of Messina, he is second in social power only to Don Pedro.
Don John (Tim Zieminski) - The illegitimate brother of Don Pedro; sometimes called “the Bastard.” Don John is melancholy and sullen by nature, and he creates a dark scheme to ruin the happiness of Hero and Claudio. He is the villain of the play; his evil actions are motivated by his envy of his brother’s social authority.
Margaret (Aimee Ouellette)- Hero’s serving woman, who unwittingly helps Borachio and Don John deceive Claudio into thinking that Hero is unfaithful. Unlike Ursula, Hero’s other lady-in-waiting, Margaret is lower class. Though she is honest, she does have some dealings with the villainous world of Don John: her lover is the mistrustful and easily bribed Borachio. Also unlike Ursula, Margaret loves to break decorum, especially with bawdy jokes and teases.
Borachio (John Tolbert) - An associate of Don John. Borachio is the lover of Margaret, Hero’s serving woman. He conspires with Don John to trick Claudio and Don Pedro into thinking that Hero is unfaithful to Claudio. His name means “drunkard” in Italian, which might serve as a subtle direction to the actor playing him.
Conrad (Theodore Killinger) - One of Don John’s more intimate associates, entirely devoted to Don John.
Dogberry (Danny Foster) - The constable in charge of the Watch, or chief policeman, of Messina. Dogberry is very sincere and takes his job seriously, but he has a habit of using exactly the wrong word to convey his meaning. Dogberry is one of the few “middling sort,” or middle-class characters, in the play, though his desire to speak formally and elaborately like the noblemen becomes an occasion for parody.
Verges (Gabriel McHugh) - The deputy to Dogberry, chief policeman of Messina.
Balthasar (John Stevens)- A musician and one of Don Pedro’s men. Balthasar sings the song, “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more” about accepting men’s infidelity as natural.
Ursula (Juliana Elizabeth Woolums) - One of Hero’s waiting women.
Gardeners (Jordan Graves & Louis Woolums) - Deputized by Dogberry.