One of the crown jewels of Shakespeare’s arsenal of comedies – Much Ado About Nothing is one of the plays from the classical canon that is BEST suited to be told in and by high school students - because the plot of the play is so very, VERY high school.
It’s a play of wit and words, as well as astonishingly poor choices on the parts of many of the characters; and where the character that we could argue is the least educated (and perhaps the most unintelligent – Dogberry) is the only person who is able to save these high-minded, well-educated and clueless nobles from themselves.
One of the most upsetting things about this play is exactly what makes it important to still perform - the choices of the characters, and not the "villains." The villains of this play are almost cartoonishly villainous - chaos-loving malcontents who just want to watch the world burn.
However, their actions are only the catalyst for the greatest cruelty in the play, which is perpetrated by two of the "good guys": Claudio and Don Pedro. These two men are manipulated, and choose to see and believe as a FACT something that negatively impacts them, rather than to question the source of the information.
They then rush into a series of horribly cruel and short-sighted actions as a means to try and make themselves feel better by punishing the person they believe embarrassed them, and while we can (and should) judge Don Pedro and Claudio for that, I would be willing to bet that we can all remember a time when we too, rushed to judgment and acted rashly, only to find out later that we were horribly, horribly wrong. All of us have likely quite literally will create a huge mess (or an "ado") about nothing.
Don Pedro and Claudio are forgiven at the end of the play, and to our modern sensibilities, that may seem inexcusable, bordering on preposterous, as a conclusion. Yet again, the question the play asks: Wouldn't you want to be forgiven? If you had made a terrible choice, based on nothing, based on something you thought you knew that turned out to be wrong, wouldn't you want to apologize and take it back? Wouldn't you beg for a do-over?
Or maybe, if you've already experienced it, you already have?
If so, may we all be so lucky as to be forgiven by the people who love us, especially if the ones we love are the ones that we've hurt the most. More important even than that though - may we all learn from our mistakes (or hopefully, the mistakes of these characters) that we do not cause harm.
Actions may speak louder than words, but words are also actions, and they can cause pain and leave terrible consequences in their wake, if recklessly used.
This play, unlike with some of Shakespeare's comedies, doesn't just end with some laughs and a marriage or two - it ends with painful lessons learned, with characters having grown up, and with hope for the future.
Thank you for coming, and enjoy the show!
