From the Dramaturge
When I was a child, I used to be severely disciplined for the infraction of “telling a story,” my father’s euphemism for lying. Almost all my lies at that age were intended to get extra cookies or to blame my brother for breaking something. Much Ado about Nothing is filled with characters telling or performing stories, most of them not exactly true, but effective nonetheless.
Don Pedro pretends to be Claudio to woo Hero on Claudio’s behalf. Pedro, Leonata,* and Claudio create an elaborate ruse to persuade Benedick that Beatrice loves him; at the time, of course, Beatrice does no such thing. Shortly afterwards, Hero, Margaret, and Ursula carry out a similar ruse to persuade Beatrice that Benedick is in stoic suffering of unrequited desire for her. Well, he has become interested, but there is significant overstatement of his pangs of love. Among these characters, under the guidance of Friar Francis, the biggest whopper they tell is that Hero has died after she was slandered at the wedding altar.
Yet those stories, or lies if you prefer, have rarely troubled audience members and readers, at least not until a teacher like me points them out as lies. At a university, where young people are so often interested in the romantic successes of their friends, plotting and conniving goes on, justified as helping out a friend. “Julia,” Cynthia says, “I think Derald likes you”; meanwhile, Derald thinks her name is Mary and she could really be less awkward.
In contrast to the storytelling the main characters do are the lying and deceiving that Don Joan, Constance, and Borachio do. First, Don Joan disguises herself as Benedick and tells Claudio that Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself. When that fails, these schemers plot to fool Claudio by showing him Hero making love with some other guy. This works, and Claudio shamefully disgraces Hero at the altar where they were to be wed.
Critics have long been interested in the fact that Shakespeare has not written a scene of Claudio supposedly witnessing Hero cheating on him. And yet, her accusers claim that she had done so a thousand times. When was all of that cheating supposed to have occurred? In Shakespeare’s later play Othello, Iago tells Othello that he cannot show him Desdemona actually cheating on him, but Iago arranges some misinterpreted interactions between Desdemona and her supposed love. In Much Ado, there is even less, indeed Nothing, as the basis for the accusations against Hero. While some stagings of Much Ado about Nothing supply the missing scene of the schemers duping Claudio, I prefer stagings which deny any justification for Claudio’s outrage. He is fooled twice; shame on him.
The missing scene is one of several “nothings” within the play about which much ado is made. Love itself is another. Early in the play, Claudio says of Hero, “In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.” Benedick answers, “I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter.” Love is a creative force, inspiring poetry, songs, and, yes, storytelling.
When do we perceive lying and deception as wrong, and when do we excuse it? The action of this play suggests that the contrast is between the creative, love, and the destructive, bearing a false witness against Hero. Put on your love goggles and enjoy the play!
--Jack Heller, Dramaturge
*In these notes, I am using the names of the characters as cast for this performance; in the play text, Leonata is Hero’s father Leonato, Don Joan is Don John, and Constance is Conrade. If you would like to read more about a religious background to Much Ado about Nothing, please see my article on Dogberry online: https://anunexpectedjournal.com/dogberrys-inscrutable-grace-in-much-ado-about-nothing/
