Much Ado Act 2: some Rom Com tropes are nice...

2.1

The scene starts by highlighting how Don John does not want to partake in the festivities/ is clearly a sketchy dude. Of course, like in everything else, Beatrice has to bring the subject back to Benedick:

He were an excellent man that were made just in the
midway between him and Benedick: the one is too
like an image and says nothing, and the other too
like my lady's eldest son, evermore tattling.

From there we move to the talk of getting Beatrice a husband and it seems, for a moment we are going to go in the direction of my LEAST favorite play...

LEONATO

By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a
husband, if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.

ANTONIO

In faith, she's too curst.

And just when i think I'm going to have nightmares about Taming of the Shrew... they let Beatrice play along and never bring up taming her brilliant wit at all. (in the nurture/nature debate, maybe kate would have been like Beatrice if her family wasn't full of abusive times)

BEATRICE

Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening.

Beatrice then goes on to explain how every man is flawed in her own way and that she intends to live a bachelorette so she can go to heaven and sit with the bachelors. What a fantastic monologue. Right about now I start remembering just how much prose is in this play!

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him

I particularly like that last phrase- Beatrice has a strenght and sexuality that it seems she is not ashamed of or punished for. After this, Beatrice's audience on stage continues to ask her about if she is sure she will not want a husband and she answers as if she and Hamlet could have been best buds if it werent for his whole not trusting any women thing:

Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust?

After this we lead into:

THE MASQUE- in all its strangeness and flirting times. how do you stage this? what music? what dance styles? This scene is a PLAYGROUND for actors/directors. Antonio's strange flirting, everyone lying to each other and who can identify vs not identify each other (even when its pretty obvious to the audience most of the time who is who based on body type, etc. and WHY does Claudio pretend to be Benedick? (unless there's a seed of jealousy in him even before don john's accusations and he will play false to feed that jealousy... in which case I have some serious concerns for Hero.)

A favorite piece, of course, is the beatrice/benedick exchange. Does beatrice know its benedick in the mask or not? just another fun choice, and then Benedick gets to respond at such length that the audience knows he must be a little crazy for Beatrice as well, or he would pay her no mind... 

O, she misused me past the endurance of a block! an oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the prince's jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: (it's so funny what you pick up on based on which play you read just before, huh?) if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her: you shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror and perturbation follows her.

Even Benedick realizes how long he's talking about Beatrice and tells himself to stop, but he can't help himself! he loves her.

Next the focus shifts to Beatrice and Don Pedro in one of the most interesting and telling exchanges:

DON PEDRO

Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of
Signior Benedick.

BEATRICE

Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.

THIS. This descritption/admission is terribly interesting to me. I start wondering all sorts of things about the past interactions between Beatrice and Benedick and how much fun it would be to create that story in production. Not to mention the images and words are just stunningly beatufiul! The conversation then shifts to Claudio and Beatrice describes him as: civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion. 1. I love the strange image of being orange with jealousy instead of green 2. I use the phrase civil as an orange as much as possible. It just sounds right with a perfect amoung of snark. And this was written before this grating video!!

Everything is cleared up between Claudio and Don Pedro about Hero and it seems that marriage and happy times are all that's ahead:

BEATRICE

Speak, count, 'tis your cue.

CLAUDIO

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.

I love that. I'm not sure it is ALWAYS true as most of the happy moments i can think of have some kind of sound attached to them, but mostly those sounds are non-verbal. Words can't describe... even though that's there job. words words words have nothing on true happiness.

But it seems this just makes everyone want Beatrice to get married even more! I am always interested if Don Pedro's semi-proposal to Beatrice is genuine or playful. I've seen it both ways and teh genuine is certainly more affecting, and prepares the audience for a change in mood that they should get used to given what's about to come the next act.... but they both seem to bounce back and rebound so quickly you need some very skilled actors to play the change successfully (I'm lucky enough to have seen several casts of skilled actors do just that...)

DON PEDRO

Will you have me, lady?

BEATRICE

No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days: your grace is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your grace, pardon me: I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

Now if that isn't the classiest way to turn a guy down, I don't know what is. 

I think it is interesting the way no one mentions this encounter to Benedick. Beatrice has no desire to make Benedick jealous or stir up trouble between his group of friends. The light way Beatrice is able to dismiss things leads Don Pedro to tell beatrice: you were born in a merry hour. To which Beatrice responds:  No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. I love that. The ASC sells clothing with that line printed on it. When the time comes for a Baby T to enter the world, just know that i'd love to dress my child in that onesie. Beatrice leaves the stage wtih well wishing: Cousins, God give you joy!

And again the conversation goes to coupling Beatrice, only now more specifically with Benedick. There's a fabulous description of Beatrice that I especially love as I have woken myself with laughing:

There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say,she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.

Then there's this little bout of adolescent-like impatience (who knows, maybe they ARE adolescent...)

DON PEDRO

County Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

CLAUDIO

To-morrow, my lord: time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

LEONATO

Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night; and a time too brief, too, to have all things answer my mind.

I love that Leonato squashes that rush... but only delays the marriage a bit longer. There's something adorably childish/stupid? about claudio's wanting to get married IMMEDIATELY.

Anyway, back to the men plotting to get beatrice a husband... I love that this is the description we get of Benedick:

And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Ringing endorsement of your friend there buddy. and Don Pedro gets even more lovely and absurd with this line, which should really be quoted a lot more in life

we are the only love-gods. YES!!!

2.2

A Short don john and borachio scene to lay the plot for tripping up Claudio and Hero... as a means of getting back at Don Pedro?! Oh Don John... stupid lines of logic must run in y'alls family.

So the basic idea is that Borachio is going to get with Hero's waiting woman Margaret and do her in a visible place where they will call each other different names than there own... and here is the BIGGEST logical problem with the scene:

hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio;

WHAT?!?! wouldn't that make claudio think hmmm... that's not me up there but she's using my name... something is weird here. once again, THIS PLAN MAKES NO SENSE and its so contrived its painful and yet i LOVE WATCHING/barely think of this when i'm watching the play vs. reading it. (not to mention that Margaret and Borachio are apparently pro the strangeness of kinky semi-public displays and role playing)

2.3

OH GOD BENEDICK'S GULLING!!!

There's a big long speech about how he doesnt get how people can fall in love and act so stupid. which means we can't WAIT to see him fall in love and act just as stupid as everyone else. What I love about this scene is the way it echoes Beatrice's earlier speech about different kinds of men.... everything works together to say MEANT FOR EACH OTHER MEANT FOR EACH OTHER MEANT FOR EACH OTHER. its like the original ROMCOM in that we know whats going to happen but it doesn't deplete how wonderful it is to watch the characters figure out what we already know.

I love the use of music in this scene. Sigh no more... basically anything that Mumford appropriates for their songs is a win.

and what is the theme in this song? Men were deceivers ever the musician practically warns everyone that maybe they should trust the women not the men... but no one listens... (note: i do not think one gender has the monopoly on being honest/deceivers)

So Don Pedro, Leonato, and Claudio trick benedick into thinking beatrice loves him. The great choice for actors here are 1. how well/poorly benedick disguises himself or hides during this scene and 2. how good the gullers are at lying. either way, this line is comedic gold:

I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: 

 there's some 2 gents sounding talk about beatrice tearing a letter into a million pieces (I seriously subscribe to Katy Mulvany's theory that this is shakespeare's great big apology for screwing up stories with women so badly earlier in his career)  and then there's this:

CLAUDIO

And she is exceeding wise.

DON PEDRO

In every thing but in loving Benedick.

this will echo later. the echoes in this show are lovely.

and while beatrice won't boast of don pedro's affections, benedick gets to hear about them anyway:

DON PEDRO

I would she had bestowed this dotage on me: I would have daffed all other respects and made her half myself.

then the conversation turns to how she'd die if benedick knew because...well, because he's been a dick to her (sorry, you have to make the bad pun sometimes...) when they leave benedick has what I think is his greatest speech in the show, starting with the make the audience feel infinitely smarter than the main character line: This can be no trick. and getting even better when he adds 

The world must be peopled!  When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

Amen Benedick. Amen. you and me both. 

The scene ends with beatrice inviting benedick in to dinner in her usual snarky way, but benedick only interprets love. meaning is made by the audience, right?

finally there's joke making fun of jews that is uncomfortable for today's audiences and then we're on to act 3.