Saturday, 2 March 2024

SHAKESPEARE REVISITED IN MUCH ADO

 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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