Catch-up 2

So I shared Much Ado About Nothing with two different people. The first person I taught was a friend of mine named Brandon, who lives in my apartment complex. The second was my little thirteen-year-old brother, Cody.


As you can imagine, simply the age differences between these two called for some serious differences in teaching. I had to really tone down the sexual connotations for Cody but could play them up for Brandon. I found it rather difficult to even share one of the major themes (cuckolds and disloyalty) with Cody, simply because he was so young and I didn't want to have to teach him what a cuckold is. Yet Brandon was easier to teach in this respect. Brandon is older than I am, and I didn't need to worry about giving him a talk about birds and bees so he could understand.

However, teaching Cody about the masks was a delight. Cody became enchanted by some of the masks that the characters wore at the masquerade and was very interested in their deeper meanings. For Cody, it was early Halloween. Brandon was interested in the masks, but the themes of mistaken identity that they represented didn't appeal to him as much.


I definitely enjoyed teaching Cody more, even though it was more difficult and I had to leave out some key parts of the story in order to shelter him.

Masks and mistaken identities

Bonus points if you can guess the identity of
this beautifully mysterious woman!

So the themes of masks and mistaken identities come up a LOT in Shakespeare's work, but in Much Ado About Nothing, the plot hinges upon it. The main conflict of the play is when Margret is mistaken for Hero when Borachio seduces Margret. Claudio then assumes that his beloved Hero is impure and rejects her at the altar and Hero's family spreads the rumor that Hero died of shame. Later the mixup is revealed and Claudio swears to marry "Hero's cousin" who arrives at the wedding masked. When Hero's mask is removed, there is much rejoicing and they all dance in celebration.

But that isn't the only time we see people hiding behind masks. In the beginning of the play, we have a masquerade, during which Beatrice and Benedick meet, Benedick bemasked and hiding his identity while Beatrice expresses her disdain for Benedick, seemingly to a random stranger.

I was rather amused by the choice of masks in the Kenneth Branagh film. Benedick has kind of a creepy, clownish mask that rather fit his sense of humor and his ability to make amusement out of almost anything. It's rather fitting.

Claudio's mask also rather intrigued me. It's quite cherubic in appearance, characterizing him as the young, naive, innocent babe. This could suggest that he truly was innocent in Hero's disgrace and that he was not truly at fault. It also suggests purity and youthfulness, making Claudio the archetypal young lover. The cherubic baby face could also be a type of Cupid, which brings up completely different characterizations and could foreshadow the trickery involved with getting Benedick and Beatrice together.

Don Pedro, the prince, wears a lion's head, which symbolizes his power and royalty. For some reason, Don Pedro, Spanish royalty, is played by Denzel Washington, which plays off of the lion mask in a totally weirder way, seeing as the actor is African-American.

One thing, however, that somewhat disappointed me was the final scene where Claudio marries "Hero's cousin." When I read the play, I expected Hero to be wearing a full on mask, not just a bridal veil over her face. So what I think I would like to do is design and make a wedding mask for Hero as my final project, since I was so unsatisfied with Kenneth Branagh's portrayal.




Be on the lookout for updates on how the mask is going, a few friends and I are making Halloween masks tomorrow, so, while I'm at it, I'll make the base for my Hero mask. I'll probably post pictures of how it's going on Monday! If any of you want to try your hand at mask making, I'll be following the directions on this website and I'll let you all know how well this stuff works.

Ash and Misty: another unlikely couple

That's right peeps, I'm taking you back to the 90s! Remember that show we all watched in elementary school? Remember how we would trade the cards like children swapping gushers for teddy grahams. Yeah, those were the days... And of course, the favorite pairing was Ash and Misty. The two were always bickering and arguing, Misty harping on Ash for trashing her bike, Ash getting on Misty's case for being so obnoxious. Yet we all knew they would get together, despite their professed dislike for each other. Deep within their bickering rivalry, they really care for each other, perhaps as more than just friends. Unfortunately, the video I wanted to show you has had its embedding disabled, but if you click on the link, you'll see that it contains the first pokemon battle between Ash and Misty, filled with banter and rivalry. Can't you just feel the romantic tension building?

Similar to their relationship is the romance between Beatrice and Benedick. The first we see of their relationship is their arguing and bickering, their rhetorical rivalry. But as time goes on, we see their feelings for each other blossom into love. At first they keep it hidden, too stubborn and unwilling to share their intimate feelings for each other, but eventually, they confess their affections and end up getting married. 

I just wish we had had such closure with Ash and Misty. Maybe not as far as them getting married, but perhaps some sort of acknowledgement of the romance building between them.

Much Ado About Nothing

When I first made my blog, I posted a link to it on facebook so some of my friends could follow it. I don't think anyone really has, but my aunt commented on my first post, saying that I should read Much Ado About Nothing. Then lo and behold, it was the play I was assigned! It was meant to be...

I'm rather excited to read this play for multiple reasons, the first being the fact that it's a comedy. I am very fond of Shakespeare's comedies and I've heard really good things about this one. I'm also rather excited to see how some of the major themes play out. One such theme is deception and masks. Masks are used throughout the play to hide the identities of some key characters. Although the audience knows the face behind the mask, not all the other characters do, which makes for some very comedic and plot-essential moments. As you can tell by my picture, I rather like masks and masquerades. If you've never seen The Phantom of the Opera, they're pretty awesome and are fairly archetypal as far as identity concealment goes. So this is a theme I'll probably be blogging about a lot.

I'm also rather excited to see how Beatrice and Benedick interact. They are the fairly archetypal unlikely lovers kind of pair, which should make for some fun comparisons. I'm also intrigues by Hero's name and may blog about Shakespeare's use of it to characterize her. I may also compare her with Hiro from Heroes if I see enough of a connection.

There's a lot of films for this play out and I plan to watch more than one of them. I'm at the very least going to watch the Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh version and the BBC version. What I would really like to see is Berlioz's opera Beatrice et Benedict. And maybe if I have the time, I'll even read the play in the "original" Klingon!