Watching 11-and 12-year-olds performing in any of William Shakespeare’s plays, be it a comedy or a tragedy, is an ambitious achievement.
But to see them performing the Bard’s ‘Much ado about
nothing’ as we did last weekend at their school, The Nairobi Academy was an
even bigger accomplishment. For ‘Much Ado’ isn’t just a comedy with farcical
moments filled with banter about the opposite sex and mocking jokes about romantic
love. And yet romantic love is a central theme of the play which revolves
around two couples, Hero () and her suitor, Claudio (), and also Claudio’
friend, Benedick () and Hero’s cousin, Beatrice ()
But there is also a dark and tragic side to the play which
makes it far more than merely a light-hearted comedy. It has elements of
jealousy and deceit, slander and lies, and malice that could have had deadly
consequences if the devilish devices hadn’t been seen and quashed by a quick-witted
priest. He advised the bride who’d been
literally blown out of the wedding ceremony when she was falsely accused of
betraying her man by having a ‘sleepover’ (sexual liaison) on the night before
her wedding with another man.
The accusers claimed to have witnesses who had first-hand
knowledge of the veracity of the charge, further undercutting Hero’s pleas to
her fiancé Claudio of her innocence. It was after he rejected her entirely that
Hero collapsed and fainted. Thereafter, she stealthily followed what the ‘holy
man’ had advised, that she play dead (much like Juliet in ‘Romeo and Juliet’)
in order that the truth be brought to light, which it was. There was a loving reconciliation
between the two sweethearts, Hero and Claudio, then a double wedding (seconded
by Beatrice and Benedict) and finally, a ‘ happily ever after’ in good
storytelling style.
But this was sturdy stuff, and one wasn’t sure that
everybody in the cast caught all of the play’s subtleties and nuances or all
the language twists and turns and double entendres that Shakespeare ingeniously
included in his play. But then there are Shakespeare scholars who spend their
lives studying his scripts to decipher his deeper meanings that is there in all
of his plays.
One has to acknowledge and applaud Jackie Kasuku for
directing her cast in a contemporary adaptation of Much Ado. It’s one of
shakespeare’s play that seemed to resonate easily with youth in their early
teens who have the kind of energy that matched that of the characters that they
played. Nonetheless, the most highly energized characters in the play were the
co-starring ladies who played Hero and Beatrice, namely… ….and … …. They were
both able to make maximum use of the
Academy’s wide and lengthy stage. Using the central aisle of the seating
section, added an extra dimension of length to the show’s performance space
when the returning (all ‘male’) army came back home and now introduced the two
ladies’ future sweethearts. But the guys were much cooler, more reserved, apart
from one, the ‘villain’ and illegitimate son of the Prince, John (). He was
ever-busy planning and making fun until he got together with a bunch of his
buddies and proposed a ‘joke’ on his brother that would disrupt their wedding
plan. John apparently had his own sights on Hero and apparently wanted the
pathway open for him to have a chance with her. But of course, that was not to
happen.
Both Hero and Claudio took the ‘news’ pf Hero’ infidelity
very badly. But in the original script, Shakespeare had John run away until he
got caught, arrested, and treated like a criminal. But in the Academy’s adapted
scrip, John and his lying lot were rehabilitated and forgiven so the play could
end on a happier note. And in that happy
note was yet another adaptation of the Bard’s original work. It was the chorus
line of well-choreographed dancers who came in intermitently to perform but who
one wasn’t quite sure of what they represented. It didn’t matter at this point
because ‘Much Ado’ needed to be lightened up so that we’d be prepared to see
first Hero and Claudio both swooning among their friends until they finally got
together. Then, came Beatrice and Benedict who traded ‘words of war’ long
before they became sweethearts and then spouses in the play. They spared
like two karate or kung fu characters
who each dismissed the idea of marriage until they realized that love was a
worthy feature to include in their lives.
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