Much Ado About Nothing

Could any trip to England really be complete without a healthy dose of the Bard and his plays? If you just said, “Pshhh, no!” out loud, you’re right.

That is why, when the CAPA team advertised free tickets to Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe Theater, I jumped at the opportunity. The play would be considered a ‘My Education’ cultural event, and all we had to do to get tickets was attend a lecture on Shakespeare from a CAPA instructor the night before.

Professor Connelly is a literature fanatic (I mean that in the best possible way). He is an adorable English man; Cambridge educated with thick glasses and talks faster than an American teenage girl sharing gossip. His hurried speech is endearing, almost charming when you factor in the accent. He rubs his hands together excitedly when he speaks about fiction, folding them beneath his chin as his lecture reaches its conclusion. The psychologist in me wants to describe it as manic, pressured speech.

I’ll briefly summarize his lecture for those of you who, like me, could use a refresher course. Prof. Connelly began with a brief Shakespeare biography, discussing his wife Anne Hathaway, their three children, their home in Stratford-upon-Avon, and his career in London.

He then prompted us to imagine what English society in the Elizabethan era must have been like. Consider the lack of social mobility, or the short life expectancy (barely forty years). Consider the religious education, or the fact that the entire society might have been perpetually buzzed – after all, if you didn’t live near a well or own a cow, you would have drunk beer or wine at almost every meal, because it was likely that the water supply was contaminated. The rich picture you have now is of gullible, passionate, tipsy people who wanted to live their short lives like firecrackers with little freedom to do so.

This is the society that Shakespeare had to write for and about. The story lines existed already. And let’s not forget the greatest tool Shakespeare had at his disposal: the English language. At the time, there was no comprehensive dictionary. The language was extraordinarily flexible and dynamic. Shakespeare is said to have had a vocabulary of about 30,000 words! And he coined loads of phrases still in everyday use.

Credit

Prof. Connelly also reviewed the plot and screened part of the 1993 film version of the play, with Denzel Washington, Emma Thompson, Kate Beckinsale, Keanu Reaves, and Robert Sean Leonard. What a cast! By Thursday night, I was beyond excited to experience Much Ado from a groundling's point-of-view in Sean Wanamaker's Globe Theater replica. 


On Friday afternoon, Amy and I arrived just in time to grab some standing room at the back of the theater before the show began. Our position involved a lot of shifting and craning necks, but the acoustics were decent and the floor was slightly slanted, which helped. After intermission, we were able to creep further up, until we were only one person removed from the stage. 


I'm no theater critic, but overall, the play felt slightly like Shakespeare for Tourists. The actors were decent. The war of wit between Beatrice and Benedick was carried out very well. I enjoyed Claudio's performance more than Hero's. A highlight: The role of Leonato was played by Joseph Marcell, whom we instantly recognized as the man who played Will Smith's butler Geoffrey on the Fresh Prince! "In west Philadelphia, born and raised..."