Shakespeare's delightful courtship comedy!
The Drilling Company's Shakespeare in the Parking Lot ensemble will open the third season of Shakespeare in Bryant Park with "Much Ado about Nothing" set in the Post World War I Suffragette movement. This free production, directed by Hamilton Clancy, will be offered on the Upper Terrace of Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library.
"Much Ado About Nothing" is a comedy about courtships: a hasty one that nearly goes wrong and a reluctant one that leads to success. The reluctant wooers are the delightful Beatrice and Benedick, who are onstage through most of the play. The hasty wooers are Hero, Beatrice's cousin, and Claudio, Bendick's comrade in arms. In the original play, the men have returned from a military campaign in Sicily with hearts bent on marriage. Here they are World War I vets. The women are Suffragettes and their zeal for new women's roles introduces a new level of complexity to the witty, agile, sometimes insulting repartee between the lovers that is the play's trademark. The plot centers on the high trickery it takes to bring Beatrice and Benedick together and the bumbling of Dogberry and Verges, who bring villainy to light before it separates Hero and Claudio.
Director Hamilton Clancy explains, "We are setting it in the Suffragette Movement because we are interested in interpreting Beatrice as an original fighter for women's rights. In a time when we may elect a female President, it seems right for this
PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE:
THURSDAY @ 9 PM
FRIDAY & SATURDAY @ 6:30 PM
