|
Much
ado about nothing
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Movie
| Play
| Author
| Director
& cast
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Play: Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
Movie: Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
Premise
movie:
"Young lovers Hero and Claudio are to be married in
one week. To pass the time, they conspire with Don Pedro to set
a "lover's trap" for Benedick, an arrogant confirmed bachelor, and
Beatrice, his favorite sparring partner. Meanwhile, the evil Don Jon
conspires to break up the wedding by accusing Hero of infidelity. In
the end, though, it all turns out to be "much ado about nothing."
from:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107616/plotsummary
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Premise
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."
from:
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/
muchado/summary.html
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Author:
"William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born to John
Shakespeare and mother Mary Arden some time in late April 1564 in
Stratford-upon-Avon. There is no record of his birth, but his
baptism was recorded by the church, thus his birthday is assumed to
be the 23 of April. His father was a prominent and
prosperous alderman in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, and was later granted a
coat of arms by the College of Heralds. All that is known of
Shakespeare's youth is that he presumably attended the Stratford
Grammar School, and did not proceed to Oxford or Cambridge. The next
record we have of him is his marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1582. The
next year she bore a daughter for him, Susanna, followed by the
twins Judith and Hamnet two years later.
Seven years later Shakespeare was recognized as an actor, poet, and
playwright, when a rival playwright, Robert Greene, referred to him
as "an upstart crow" in "A Groatsworth of Wit." A few years later he
joined up with one of the most successful acting troupes in
London: "The Lord Chamberlain's Men." When, in 1599, the troupe
lost the lease of the theatre where they performed (appropriately
called "The Theatre"), they were wealthy enough to build their own
theatre across the Thames, south of London, which they called "The
Globe." The new theatre opened in July of 1599, built from the
timbers of "The Theatre", with the motto
"Totus mundus agit histrionem" (A whole world of players). When James I came to the
throne (1603) the troupe was designated by the new king as
the "King's Men" (or "King's Company"). The Letters Patent of the
company specifically charged Shakespeare and eight others "freely to
use and exercise the art and faculty of playing Comedies, Tragedies,
Histories, Interludes, Morals, Pastorals, stage plays ... as well
for recreation of our loving subjects as for our solace and
pleasure." Shakespeare entertained the King and the people for another ten
years until June 19, 1613, when a canon fired from the roof of the
theatre for a gala performance of Henry VIII set fire to the thatch
roof and burned the theatre to the ground. The audience ignored the
smoke from the roof at first, being to absorbed in the play, until
the flames caught the walls and the fabric of the curtains.
Amazingly there were no casualties, and the next spring the company
had the theatre "new builded in a far fairer manner than before."
Although Shakespeare invested in the rebuilding, he retired from the
stage to the Great House of New Place in Statford that he had
purchased in 1597, and some considerable land holdings ,where he
continued to write until his death in 1616 on the day of his 52nd
birthday."
from:
http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/
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Director:
Kenneth Branagh
Cast:
Kenneth Branagh (Signior Benedick), Emma Thompson (Beatrice),
Ricahrd Briers (Signior Leonato), Keanu Reeves (Don John), Kate
Beckinsale (Hero), Robert Sean Leonard (Count Claudio), Denzel
Washington (Don Pedro), Michael Keaton (Constable Dogberry), Imelda
Staunton (Margaret) and others.
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