Don Jon (Much Ado About Nothing)

[shaxper]

An interesting discussion came up at dinner with some friends tonight. We were comparing performances of Much Ado. They'd just seen one that was done rather tragically, where the fear and confusion are really played up and the comedy is muted.

I thought that was interesting, but recalled a great version of MAAN I'd seen at the Cambridge festival a few years back where Don Jon's performance, his interactions with others, and the very staging suggested that he was powerless in this happy, comic world and that was where his frusteration and anger came from. He and the audience both knew he was powerless to become a dreaded Machiavellian in such a land/play.

So how do you see Don Jon? I think of some of Shaky's other great comedies (As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew) and the opposing force is either a circumstance as opposed to a person, or a person who is largely not present. Much Ado throws the opposing force in your face, but do we fear him, or are we laughing at his efforts, taking comfort in the protection that such a silly comedy offers?


Just as an aside, I've left out the problem comedies in these examples because I felt they weren't entirely relevant (unless you see this play as a problem comedy).

[Ganymede]

I always felt that one of the points of Much Ado is that the opposing force is impotent and that the tragedy is farcical. Claudio especially is overdone to the point of absurdity at times. Claudio and Hero's plot was not new at the Shakespeare was writing. Rather, it was overused. Shakespeare pairs that plot with Beatrice and Benedick's. They are the ones who grab our attention because they are so different, so alive. Don John, as the maker of mischief, is ineffectual because this is not a tragedy. This is a comedy making fun of a tragedy. I agree whole-heartedly with a production that emphasizes this reading of the play (and wish I had seen it myself). I tend to groan during ones where the Claudio/Hero plot is given too much weight and where the play verges on seriousness. Focus on the title: Much Ado About NOTHING! Hence the humor and the fun in the face of false tragedy.