"Much Ado About Nothing" cast will showcase themes and relationships of the traditional Shakespeare play in a 1940s setting.
Beatrice and Benedick’s famous banter can be seen in the Elizabeth Evans Baker Theater in Kantner Hall for the next two weeks as the Division of Theater presents Much Ado About Nothing.
The William Shakespeare comedy follows two love stories — of Beatrice and Benedick and of Claudio and Hero — and how they are affected by rumors.
Dennis Delaney, director of the play, said the play is set in the summer of 1945, post-World War II, in Messina, Italy, as people are celebrating the newfound peace. Setting the play during that time period allows for interesting character dynamics, Delaney said, as well as for the story to be shown as accurately as possible without straying away from the core values of the play.
The transformation that takes place throughout the play is reflected in the set, according to Justen Locke, the scenic designer of the play.
“(Dennis and I) wanted it to be a blown out, destroyed piazza and, over the course of the play, rebuilt to the full piazza,” Locke, a third-year graduate studying scenic and lighting design, said. “It took a lot of research and a lot of sketches for me to get it from one world to the other.”
Locke started in reverse with the finished piazza and then said he had to work backward to figure out how to make it look destroyed with it being able to be put back together again. He added more paint treatment to the set to make it look authentic.
Delaney has directed Much Ado About Nothing three times.
“It’s a play that I’ve really grown to love and think it’s one of Shakespeare’s best comedies,” he said. “I thought that it fit our current talent pool very well.”
The only main changes to the text that Delaney said he made were cutting certain parts that would not make sense linguistically to a modern audience.
“I find that as a culture, we have a natural prejudice against Shakespeare,” Delaney said. “There is a reason that we are still doing these plays 420 years after they were written.”
For her first show at Ohio University, Ellie Clark, a first-year graduate actor, plays Beatrice, one of the main characters of the play.
“She’s fierce and vulnerable and playful and sensitive,” Clark said. “I don’t know if I would say it’s difficult, but I would say it’s a challenge to make sure every aspect of her personality comes together to show how full of a character that Shakespeare has written.”
The biggest challenge the actors face, Clark said, is to make sure that all of their preparation and hard work before the show helps to translate the context and relationships in the show to a modern audience.
“I try to be as faithful as I can to the playwright while still making sure the audience understands that these plays are still relevant,” Delaney said. “They’re not written in a foreign language you can’t understand. … You definitely can relate to these characters.”
The cast consists of both graduate and undergraduate actors. That doesn’t affect the play, Delaney said, because young actors are capable of performing Shakespeare plays, especially because Much Ado About Nothing is a youthful play that only has a couple of older characters.
“I love directing young actors because, quite honestly, there isn’t that jaded attitude that some professional actors might have, and there is also that sense of ‘I can do anything,’ ” he said. “That’s a fantastic, positive attitude to take.”
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