by Ian Doescher
When pride o’erwhelmeth anger in her heart?
CADY By heaven, Sir Duvall, has this not gone
On long enow? Pray, end the ceremony.
DUVALL Ha, ha! Thou hast done admirably, Cady.
Enjoy yourselves, you young ones. Strike up, pipers!
[All students descend from the stage to dance.
JANIS [to Damian:] Behold, I am a queen, with crown to
prove’t!
DAMIAN I also am!
CADY [approaching:]—Holla, my friends.
JANIS —Holla.
CADY Are we still fighting, or shall truce be call’d?
JANIS Art thou still ass-like, or be callèd kind?
CADY My days of assery I leave behind.
JANIS My days of fighting thee I leave as well.
DAMIAN This song that plays—I love it, yea, I do!
JANIS This song that plays—I hate it, yea, I do!
CADY This song that plays—I know it, yea, I do!
DAMIAN Behind thee, Cady, comes man candy hither.
[Aaron approaches. Janis and Damian turn away to give Cady privacy.
CADY Good even, Aaron.
AARON —By my troth, I thought
Thou wouldst not make it to the Fling of Spring.
[He pulls certificates from his pocket.
As agent of the seniors, ’tis my spot
To thee two gift certificates to bring.
[Janis and Damian grab one gift certificate.
JANIS My thanks, thou jester!
DAMIAN —Sooth, we fly like fairies!
AARON ’Tis then a single gift certificate
Unto the Walker Brothers Pancake House.
CADY My thanks, sweet Aaron. I shall treasure it.
[They begin to dance.
AARON Congratulations on thy win, sweet mouse—
I hear the Mathletes beat the state entire.
CADY How nervous was I! Limits near did end me.
Indeed, methought some vomit might transpire.
AARON How is thy stomach? Say if I should fend me.
CADY It feeleth fine.
AARON —Not e’en the smallest grumble?
An thou art nauseous, wilt tell me so?
CADY Indeed.
AARON —No drinking, neither?
CADY —I’ll not stumble.
AARON Then all is grool—I fear no greater woe.
[They kiss. Aside, Janis and Damian dance.
JANIS Shall we endeavor kissing, as they do?
[Janis and Damian kiss.
DAMIAN Foul, foul!
JANIS —’Twas a profound mistake!
DAMIAN —Forsooth!
[Exit Damian. Kevin approaches Janis.
KEVIN Where one departs, another takes its place—
This fraction is mine opportunity.
JANIS May I help thee?
KEVIN —Art thou, lass, Puerto Rican?
The island hath a quotient of my soul.
JANIS Nay, Lebanese.
KEVIN —I feel that in my bones—
A function of my reverence for thee.
[All freeze as Cady comes forward.
CADY Our tale concludeth for the present moment.
Yet, ere we go, we’ll tell the futures of
The characters ye witness’d in our play.
The Plastics were disbanded, happily,
A mercy for the school and for each one.
Regina’s spine did heal from tip to tip.
Her therapist help’d her to channel rage
By playing contact sports with eager will.
’Twas perfect, for the jock girls lov’d her so,
Were not afeard of her great vehemence.
Meanwhile, sweet Karen us’d her talent rare
To make prognostication of the weather.
Each morning she could tell the town entire—
By using the two sensors on her chest—
The temp’rature and likeliness of rain.
Kind Gretchen found herself another clique,
A new queen bee to serve and praise withal—
Wherein her vast Korean language skills
Were treasur’d by her newfound Asian friends.
Mine Aaron went to university—
Northwestern, near enow that I may see him
When swiftly run the days from week to weekend.
And last, I went from homeschool’d jungle freak
To shiny Plastic—fake and terrible—
To the most-hated person in the school,
To, finally, a normal human soul.
Our Janis and her Kevin were as one,
And ev’rything was happily resolv’d.
The drama of the year did pass us by
And seem’d not so important in the next.
Once, school was like a shark tank, baring teeth,
Yet now ’tis simpler, letting us each float.
Girl World hath found a peace within itself.
And though the Junior Plastics did arrive,
Repeating the mistakes we once did make,
A solid bus careening through the street
Shall set them in their place most ardently.
Nay, ’tis not so—I purely am in jest.
Although the world, like tempest, ’round us whirls,
We dwell in peace, no more to be mean girls.
[Exeunt omnes.
END.
AFTERWORD
The story of Cady, her friends, and her frenemies is deserving of a Shakespearean treatment—a tale of how relationships are broken by misunderstanding and repaired by circumstance and humility. William Shakespeare’s female characters were never as strong as those of Tina Fey’s creation, which is why I had so much fun giving the Bard a dose of feminism in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls. Writing this book has been an absolute joy. I only hope I have done the movie justice.
A note about the staging: The film Mean Girls jumps freely from scene to scene, often in short clips that make a joke or emphasize a point. On Shakespeare’s stage such quick flashes would have been almost unknown, so I improvised. Characters enter and exit the balcony quickly, and brief cinematic scenes spanning multiple days and locations are tied together in a single theatrical scene. For example, in Act III, scene 2, Damian finds the Kälteen bars in Cady’s satchel that he had just pretended to steal, whereas the movie switches to a separate scene in Cady’s home. The final scenes of the film alternate frequently between the Mathlete competition and Spring Fling; I have rearranged these into two distinct scenes. Finally, because Cady’s voice so often narrates the film, in my adaptation she has more asides than Shakespearean characters ever would.
This is my first Shakespearean adaptation outside the action/sci-fi genre and my first adaptation of a story centered on the lives of women. I decided to try something I had never done before. Instead of including Shakespearean references at whim, whenever and wherever they occurred to me, I paired each main female character in Mean Girls with a Shakespearean counterpart. In other words, each Shakespearean reference is taken from a specific Shakespearean character. These are the characters I paired together:
Cady: Miranda in The Tempest. Miranda is an ingenue who has lived most of her life secluded with her father in a remote wilderness, not unlike Cady. (I broke this pairing once, when Cady uses lines borrowed from Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. The quote from Hero was so perfect for the moment that I had to use it. Can you find it?)
Janis: Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. Beatrice has a caustic, biting wit and a fierce loyalty to her friends.
Regina: Kate in Taming of the Shrew. Kate, the titular shrew, starts off the play as a harsh woman with a sharp tongue.
Gretchen: Viola in Twelfth Night. Viola, dressing as a man, serves as a constant go-between and wears a different face with each character.
Karen: Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Juliet is the youngest of Shakespeare’s heroines. She is innocent and hopeful.
Mrs
. Heron: Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. Cleopatra is the regal, intelligent woman who has come from Africa.
Mrs. George: Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s cruelest, most cunning villains. Yes, this is unfair to Amy Poehler’s portrayal of Mrs. George, who is nothing but positive and fun. My thought was that anyone who could raise Regina must be a piece of work.
Ms. Norbury: Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There’s little textual connection here—I just love Tina Fey so much that I thought, “Who could represent her except a majestic fairy queen?”
In addition to these references, you will likely notice other Shakespearean nods and conventions. After Cady and Aaron kiss for the first time, they begin speaking to each other in rhyming quatrains, like Romeo and Juliet. Kevin Gnapoor, the adorable badass deejay and math geek, uses a mathematical term every time he opens his mouth.
Thanks for reading, friends. Go forth and be your amazing selves. And watch out for buses.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to every woman who has made my life a little bit better:
My spouse and best friend, Jennifer Creswell.
My mother, Beth Doescher.
My mother-in-law, Caryl Creswell.
My sisters-in-law, Katherine Creswell, Em Doescher, and Sibyl Siegfried.
My nieces, Aracelli, Addison, and Sophie.
My friends and family: Chloe Ackerman, Heidi Altman, Erin Buehler, Melody Burton, Emily Carminati, Jeanette Ehmke, Kristin Gordon, Marian Hammond, Holly Havens, Mona Havens, Nancy Hicks, Ruby Hicks, Anne Huebsch, Apricot Irving, Alexis Kaushansky, Rebecca Lessem, Andrea Martin, Joan Miller, Tara Morrill, Lucy Neary, Julia Rodriguez-O’Donnell, Helga and Isabella Scott, Sarah Shepherd, Naomi Walcott, Nicole, Mackinzie, Audrey, and Lily Warne-McGraw, Katie Wire, and Sarah Woodburn. Thank you, also, to many of their spouses.
My teachers Jane Bidwell, Betsy Deines, Doree Jarboe, Chris Knab, and Janice Morgan.
Thank you to the team at Quirk Books: my editor Jhanteigh Kupihea (our first project together!), Nicole De Jackmo, Kelsey Hoffman, Jane Morley, Christina Schillaci, Ivy Weir, Rick Chillot, Brett Cohen, Andie Reid, and the rest of the crew.
To my boys, Liam and Graham—boys who are, hopefully, growing to be good men.
READER’S GUIDE
You don’t need to be a Shakespeare scholar to enjoy William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls. But if you’ve come to this book with more knowledge about Plastics than playwrights, this reader’s guide may help deepen your understanding of the language and structure of the book, all of which is inspired by Shakespeare’s work.
Iambic Pentameter
Shakespeare wrote his plays in a specific syllabic pattern known as iambic pentameter. An iamb is a unit of meter, sometimes called a foot, consisting of two syllables, the first of which is unstressed, or soft, and the second of which is stressed, or emphasized. Together the two syllables of an iamb sound like “da-DUM,” as in beyond (“be-YOND”), across (“a-CROSS”), and Duvall (“du-VALL”). Pentameter is a line of verse containing five feet. So iambic pentameter consists of five iambs, or ten syllables alternating in emphasis. A famous example of this meter, with the stressed half of each iamb in bold, is:
I’d rather be a hammer than a nail.
However, Shakespeare broke the rule almost as much as he observed it. The most famous Shakespearean line of all has eleven syllables, not ten: “To be or not to be, that is the question.” That last -ion is known as a weak ending, or an unstressed syllable. Shakespeare often used weak endings, added two unstressed syllables where there should be one, and left out syllables.
Let’s see iambic pentameter in action with this speech from Act I, scene 2 (see this page).
JANIS What fire is in mine ears? What scene was this?
No glory lives behind the back of such.
The Plastics say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.
Thou hast been claim’d and thou shalt take thy claim!
Thou shalt wear pink upon the morrow, yea,
And make report of all Regina sayeth,
No matter how horrendous, rank, and vile.
If you read this speech aloud, you may notice that the dialogue sounds unnatural if spoken according to how the individual lines are broken. Rather, punctuation should guide how lines of iambic pentameter are spoken, as if the speech were written as prose. Consider lines 256–257: “The Plastics say thou dost deserve, and I / Believe it better than reportingly.” This sentence—which contains language borrowed from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing—is split across two lines. When read, the lines should naturally flow into the next. (By the way, line 260 in this speech contains an example of a weak ending.)
What about words with more than two syllables? The trick with multisyllabic words is to figure out which syllable in the word has the primary emphasis. Let’s consider the word calamity (as in P. J. Calamity’s): The primary emphasis is normally on the second syllable, calamity. In iambic pentameter, it makes sense to pronounce it as two iambs, “cala-” and “-mity.” The final syllable -ty provides a secondary stress that fits the meter nicely.
Other Shakespearean Hallmarks
The following features of a Shakespearean play are all found in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls.
Five acts. Plays in Shakespeare’s time were structured in five parts, drawing on the tradition of ancient Roman plays. Acts can contain any number of scenes.
Minimal stage directions. Shakespeare left it to the performers to determine who should do what on stage. I tried to do the same when writing William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls, but this play has far more stage directions than one of Shakespeare’s would, to ensure that sequences are clear. Shakespeare never had his characters dance to a skipping CD player, after all.
Rhyming couplets at the end of scenes. A rhyming couplet is a pair of consecutive lines ending with a similar sound. For example, Act II, scene 1, lines 99–100 (see this page): “Anon I’ll tell my friends what I have seen— / This Burn Book tactless, fill’d with spirit mean.” Shakespeare ended his scenes this way to indicate a narrative shift to the audience, similar to a final cadence in music.
Asides. An aside is dialogue that the audience can hear but that the characters other than the speaker do not. These speeches often explain a character’s motivations or inner thoughts or reveal background information to the audience. We might also describe this as a character “breaking the fourth wall,” that is, crossing the imaginary divide between stage and audience to address the spectators directly.
Soliloquies. These monologues are similar to asides in that often they explain a character’s behavior or motivation. But they occur when the character is alone on stage and tend to be longer than asides.
Anaphora. Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the start of successive lines, used for rhetorical effect. Damian employs anaphora in Act I, scene 2, lines 296–299 (see this page), where he starts several lines with the phrase “Pink is.” (A similar speech appears in Shakespeare’s Henry the Sixth, Part 1, Act II, scene 4, lines 11–15.)
Stichomythia. In stichomythia, characters exchange lines of dialogue back and forth, echoing and repeating one another. An example of stichomythia appears in the final reconciliation scene among Cady, Janis, and Damian in Act V, scene 3, lines 108–114 (see this page). A similar exchange appears in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act III, scene 4, lines 9–12.
Extended metaphors. Shakespeare often draws out a metaphor in order to squeeze as much life from it as possible. One example is when Romeo and Juliet first meet and kiss in Act I, scene 5, of Romeo and Juliet; they make references to religion as an extended religious metaphor for their divine, nearly sacred love. Similarly, I used war as a metaphor in Act III, scene 5, lines 238–245 (see this page), when Cady discusses her schemes.
Songs. Shakespeare’s plays are full of songs! Sometimes playful, sometimes mystical, sometim
es sorrowful, songs appear at unexpected moments and often break the rhythm of iambic pentameter. William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Mean Girls includes multiple songs adapted from the film’s soundtrack. An excerpt of my Shakespearean version of “Jingle Bell Rock” appears on this page.
SONNET G14
The web is so fetch…
Young Cady hath a newfound peace of mind,
The Plastics are disbanded, by and by,
E’en once-enrag’d Regina hath grown kind,
And all is well once more at North Shore High.
The sun doth set on this, our merry scene,
Yet if ye would have more, we pray read on:
Pull up quirkbooks.com upon thy screen
And thou shalt reap rewards from dusk to dawn!
Say, do thy students need a Bard refresher?
Find thou, online, an ample teacher’s guide.
Wouldst read an interview with Ian Doescher?
E’en on the website shalt thou be supplied.
If thine enjoyment thou wouldst gladly stretch,
Get thee unto the website—’twill be fetch!
quirkbooks.com/muchadoaboutmeangirls
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
IAN DOESCHER is the New York Times best-selling author of William Shakespeare’s Star Wars and the Pop Shakespeare series. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his family. Visit him online at IanDoescher.com.
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