#muchado

[thecandlewasters]

"Well, I've never heard of the second one" - David Tennant, probably

[martindykewood]

I'm loving your TMA Shakespeare thoughts! Why do you think Beatrice would serve the Eye and Benedick would serve the Lonely?

ah yay i’m glad!! that particular arrangement started as a joke post about elias and peter, but the more i think about it the more i like it for them.

beatrice’s main flaw is that she’s judgmental and critical. she prides herself on her wit and her lack of involvement, the fact that she’s an observer rather than a participant in the culture of courting and familial duty. she considers herself above it, and she considers that a mark of her own wisdom and acuity. 

her aversion to marriage is founded in her aversion to being controlled. she does foster real relationships, though: she loves her cousin and her uncle genuinely and engages with them as equals, even as she exalts herself for being free of the system they perpetuate.

she values knowledge, truth, she thrives on being one who knows people, one who is trusted with sensitive information. she’s all about “i’ve a good eye, uncle; i can see a church by daylight” and “disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, misprising what they look on” and “he is now as valiant as hercules who only tells a lie and swears it.”

benedick’s main flaw is that he’s fickle in interpersonal relationships. he’s obnoxiously, vocally against forming any kind of romantic attachment, and though he seems to be loyal to his friends, his allegiance is fleeting: “he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.”

he’s also quite critical of people at times, but only insofar as they interfere with his own comfortable way of living. he judges hero harshly because she threatens his friend’s bachelorhood, not because he actually has anything against her. he trades barbs with beatrice because they’re too similar in all the wrong ways, and she threatens his solitude by being perfectly companionable.

his perpetual alienation isn’t for any particular reason to do with other people; it’s his own issue. he refuses to marry because he believes that he would never be happy or comfortable in a marriage, and he won’t subject another person to what he would become in that situation: “because i will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, i will do myself the right to trust none.”

and then when you put them together, you get beatrice’s shrewd judgment with benedick’s fear of attachment: “but that my lady beatrice should know me, and not know me!” you get the masterful manipulation of their insecurities to make them realize and admit their love: beatrice is said to be too judgmental to accept benedick’s love, benedick too prideful for beatrice. they say she will receive his love with criticism, and he will receive hers with mockery.

you get “i do suffer love indeed, for i love thee against my will” and “to bind me or undo me, one of them” and “a miracle! here’s our own hands against our hearts,” because this love goes against everything they profess and stand for, but it’s true and deep; they love each other despite themselves. the progression of their relationship is about beatrice learning how to let herself be vulnerable and benedick learning how to let himself care and be cared for. 

whereas beatrice has thus far fostered relationships with a largely one-way flow of knowledge, put herself above those in her life and tried to know them without being known herself, she has to let benedick know her. and whereas benedick has always compensated for his insecurities and trust issues by putting distance between himself and others, he has to let beatrice prove to him that love is worth it.

[theaveragenerd]

Beatrice: I don’t want to get married. Boys are stupid

Benedick: No one wants to marry you

Beatrice: Good

Leonato: Not with that attitude

Beatrice: I don’t care

Don Pedro:

Hero:

Leonato:

Claudio:

Hero: Benedick likes you

Beatrice: OMG DID HE SAY THAT OMG I THINK I LOVE HIM!!

[anonsally]

Nothing Happened, by Molly Booth

This is a very good YA adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, set at a summer camp in Maine. Most of the main characters are counselors at the camp--i.e., teenagers. Different chapters are told from different characters’ points of view.

[spoilers below for both the play and the novel]

In this adaptation, Bee and Hana live year-round at Camp Dogberry, but during the summer their family runs the camp, and Bee (18) and her younger sister Hana (16) are among the counselors. Donald and Ben are one year older than Bee, just done with their first year of college, and unexpectedly back to work one more summer at the camp. Bee and Ben have not recovered from misunderstandings after having secretly hooked up the previous summer; Hana and Claudia (17, I think) have been flirting via text.

Claudia’s insecurity and inexperience lead to Donald talking to Hana to get them together. John’s motivations are a bit different from in the play: he is interested in Claudia himself, which is why he is so invested in breaking her up from Hana. He doesn’t “get it” when Claudia rejects him by being vaguely uninterested. He doubts that Claudia and Hana have actual feelings for each other and homophobically assumes that they’re just hooking up as a “typical” young female experimentation. The whole thing blows up into a public humiliation of Hana (who is still in recovery from a major depression after being dumped by a boyfriend a few months ago), but no physical violence and no actual condemnation by the parents. 

However, the rumors fly wildly among the kids, and Hana is condemned by nearly everyone as a cheater, with Claudia garnering sympathy as the one betrayed. Hana hides in her parents’ house instead of sleeping in the cabin with the kids, and stops teaching swimming like she normally does, and stops doing all the activities that normally keep her anxiety under control. Eventually there’s a public exculpation of Hana; most of the guilty parties apologise (John has run off by then; he only came back to camp because he wanted to date Claudia, though it’s possible his father also insisted) and Hana is happy to no longer be harassed. 

Partly because Claudia has suffered bullying herself at school for being queer (and does not appear to have supportive parents) and partly because she was tricked and actually had slightly more evidence than Claudio does in the play, her eventual reunion with Hana doesn’t feel as gross as it does in the play... but perhaps the main reason is that although Hana hadn’t cheated on Claudia with her ex-boyfriend, she had been texting him and hadn’t been honest with Claudia about that. 

Bee and Ben’s story unfolds a bit out of order--the story of the night they hooked up the previous summer is told gradually in flashbacks from their different points of view, and the story of how they finally get back on the same page this summer is a pretty faithful retelling of the play. Their backstories are delved into a little in the flashbacks (Ben’s stepfather is somewhat abusive; Bee used to try to run away from home when she was little because she felt so out of place [she was adopted and the only nonwhite kid in town], but her parents would always help her pack her backpack and put in a note saying how much they loved her and hoped she would come back, so she always did come back before she got very far), and the closeness that led up to their hooking up feels like a real loss in the face of Bee’s hostility to Ben, who clearly does have feelings for her. 

Bee’s close relationship with her sister is the best. The night when Hana (having failed to convince her parents to let her leave in order to avoid Claudia after the breakup) tries to sneak away to see her ex-boyfriend, she finds her backpack packed for her with a note from Bee saying how much she loves her. 

All in all, I thought this was an excellent retelling of the play, and one that shows the dangers of rumor-mongering and the importance of communication, trust, and respect. Bonus points for a few characters of color (Bee was adopted at age 5 from Ethiopia; Donald is black; and possibly some other characters I’ve forgotten) and for queer representation: Hana is bi or pan (she herself isn’t sure which label she prefers), Claudia is apparently mainly or exclusively interested in women, and two minor male characters hook up, plus the adult drama teacher is gay.

[thecandlewasters]

Tumblr, do you #VoteForPedro?

Hell yeah! He's an All Round Great Guy!

Yeah, nah, not my cuppa

vanilla extract/i'm bald/bisexual misha collins/etc

Voting ended onMay 6, 2024

Celebrating 10 Years of NMTD 🦩🥭

Join the Much Ado About Nothing crew as they navigate high school in New Zealand at the height of superwholock. It's 2014 and you've got nothing much to do...

[thecandlewasters]

Nostalgic for early tumblr? Craving that Dracula Daily mineral? Perhaps obsessed with a certain enemies-to-lovers Shakespeare play?

Look no further, NMTD(Taylor's Version) is here!

[thecandlewasters]

[coffeee-bitch]

Last nights performance of Much Ado About Nothing by @threeinchfools was astounding and we had so much fun! Their energy and talent were fantastic. Bravo! . #Shakespeare #performance #muchado #charlecotepark #openair #warwick #play #saturdayevening (at Charlecote Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1B5jsMhYWg/?igshid=yqj8gf3r0ngl