Much Ado: Comments on a Play I'll Probably Never See

[neadods]

To be honest, as soon as I heard that the Tennant/Tate Much Ado had been shifted to the 1980s, I felt a lot better about the fact that I'll probably never get to see it.

It's not the performances - I'm sure they're brillaint. (He is, after all, a trained Shakespearean actor, she is a comedic actor, they have good chemistry.)

It's not the time shift per se - I've seen amazing productions that have been shifted to a variety of times. The Folger did one set WWI that was just brilliant; Benedict was an American volunteer in the nascent British air force and his hinted previous abandonment of Beatrice was because he'd gone home to America at one point. Fantastic production.

However, past about 1950, timeshifting this particular play just falls all to hell. Massive, integral parts of the plot deal with the concept of Hero's status as an untouched virgin, from the aborted wedding scene through the important and heartwrenching moment when Benedict has to choose between Beatrice ("Kill Claudio!") and his soldier brethren... and he choses her. (I know there are Benedict/Beatrice only versions of the play out there, and how the heck they deal with this moment I can't even imagine. Even the plot against the prince ties back to Hero-as-virgin.)

But once you go past the '50s, the idea of a woman's honor being tied entirely to her virginity in a Western setting is dead and gone, stabbed by the 60s of free love, trampled by the 70s of rising feminism, and kicked entirely into its grave by the 80s when it's simply no longer any kind of a deal, much less a big one, that a woman has taken control of her sexuality.

I don't know if I could be made to laugh hard enough to get over that inherent cognitive dissonance.

Comments

[nonelvis]

I'd like to agree with your second-to-last paragraph, but there are enough highly conservative people (in the United States, at least) that I can't. I think it's true that there's much, much less of a connection between honor and virginity than there used to be, but it's unfortunately still there.

In either case, I plan to suspend any disbelief I have when I see the play next month.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I concede the point, but then you'd have to make it clear that the play was shifted to one of those places where purity balls are held.

I do hope you enjoy it - I'm not trying to spoke wheels here and none of the reviews say the performances are anything less than brilliant - but that aspect makes me itch a tiny bit.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much what I was going to say. In a large city, in the 80s or later, it wasn't that big a deal. But I actually know someone who had a hard time finding an apartment in Knoxville in the 1970s because so many landlords wouldn't rent to an unmarried couple. And there were a LOT of busybodies and gossips. If they set it anywhere in the Deep South in that era, I wouldn't have a bit of trouble buying the premise.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

From Michael Billington's review, they handle that bit rather nicely. It's not about her virginity, it's about what she's been up to...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It would be a hard distinction to make, I think. I know the majority of the reviews are glowing, so it obviously works. But... well, but.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I'm betting it'll work - don't care anyway, I just want to see them doing Much Ado, 'cos I think they'll be bloody brilliant. (Is it August 6 yet?)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I really don't want to ruin anyone else's enjoyment of the play, and all the reviews say the performances are brilliant. I want to hear all when you get back!

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I shall do a post - like I did for Hamlet. It might even be the same day since I'm going to a matinee.

[eldarwannabe.livejournal.com]

Having seen it, I can say that yeah, it was a slight suspension of disbelief, but not a huge one. It takes place in the Gibraltar military base in the 1980s. I know almost nothing about the location, but it was clear that Hero was a protected young woman in a restrictive (loving, but cloistered) household and community. The soldiers are mostly deferential to her, and Beatrice seems to be her only close friend - not a lot of opportunities, it seems.

It might seem a bit improbable, but the way they also shaped the scenes worked with it as well. Because while the text emphasized that the problem was the Hero wasn't a virgin, you couldn't really blame Claudio for being so upset that his fiance was cheating on him so publicly the night before their wedding.

IDK, I think the update gave it a more familiar flavor. And the acting was fantastic, which always makes it easier to suspend disbelief when necessary. /end ramble