Though Burbage was admired above all others, praise was also heaped upon the apprentice players whose alto voices fitted them for the parts of women. A spectator at Oxford in 1610 records how the audience were reduced to tears by the pathos of Desdemona’s death. The puritans who fumed about the biblical prohibition upon cross-dressing and the encouragement to sodomy constituted by the sight of an adult male kissing a teenage boy on stage were a small minority. Little is known, however, about the characteristics of the leading apprentices in Shakespeare’s company. It may perhaps be inferred that one was a lot taller than the other, since Shakespeare often wrote for a pair of female friends, one tall and fair, the other short and dark (Helena and Hermia, Rosalind and Celia, Beatrice and Hero).
We know little about Shakespeare’s own acting roles—an early allusion indicates that he often took royal parts, and a venerable tradition gives him old Adam in As You Like It and the ghost of old King Hamlet. Save for Burbage’s lead roles and the generic part of the clown, all such castings are mere speculation. We do not even know for sure whether the original Falstaff was Will Kempe or another actor who specialized in comic roles, Thomas Pope.
Kempe left the company in early 1599. Tradition has it that he fell out with Shakespeare over the matter of excessive improvisation. He was replaced by Robert Armin, who was less of a clown and more of a cerebral wit: this explains the difference between such parts as Lancelet Gobbo and Dogberry, which were written for Kempe, and the more verbally sophisticated Feste and Lear’s Fool, which were written for Armin.
One thing that is clear from surviving “plots” or storyboards of plays from the period is that a degree of doubling was necessary. 2 Henry VI has over sixty speaking parts, but more than half of the characters only appear in a single scene and most scenes have only six to eight speakers. At a stretch, the play could be performed by thirteen actors. When Thomas Platter saw Julius Caesar at the Globe in 1599, he noted that there were about fifteen. Why doesn’t Paris go to the Capulet ball in Romeo and Juliet? Perhaps because he was doubled with Mercutio, who does. In The Winter’s Tale, Mamillius might have come back as Perdita and Antigonus been doubled by Camillo, making the partnership with Paulina at the end a very neat touch. Titania and Oberon are often played by the same pair as Hippolyta and Theseus, suggesting a symbolic matching of the rulers of the worlds of night and day, but it is questionable whether there would have been time for the necessary costume changes. As so often, one is left in a realm of tantalizing speculation.
THE KING’S MAN
The new king, James I, who had held the Scottish throne as James VI since he had been an infant, immediately took the Lord Chamberlain’s Men under his direct patronage. Henceforth they would be the King’s Men, and for the rest of Shakespeare’s career they were favored with far more court performances than any of their rivals. There even seem to have been rumors early in the reign that Shakespeare and Burbage were being considered for knighthoods, an unprecedented honor for mere actors—and one that in the event was not accorded to a member of the profession for nearly three hundred years, when the title was bestowed upon Henry Irving, the leading Shakespearean actor of Queen Victoria’s reign.
Shakespeare’s productivity rate slowed in the Jacobean years, not because of age or some personal trauma, but because there were frequent outbreaks of plague, causing the theaters to be closed for long periods. The King’s Men were forced to spend many months on the road. Between November 1603 and 1608, they were to be found at various towns in the south and Midlands, though Shakespeare probably did not tour with them by this time. He had bought a large house back home in Stratford and was accumulating other property. He may indeed have stopped acting soon after the new king took the throne. With the London theaters closed so much of the time and a large repertoire on the stocks, Shakespeare seems to have focused his energies on writing a few long and complex tragedies that could have been played on demand at court: Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Cymbeline are among his longest and poetically grandest plays. Macbeth only survives in a shorter text, which shows signs of adaptation after Shakespeare’s death. The bitterly satirical Timon of Athens, apparently a collaboration with Thomas Middleton that may have failed on the stage, also belongs to this period. In comedy, too, he wrote longer and morally darker works than in the Elizabethan period, pushing at the very bounds of the form in Measure for Measure and All’s Well That Ends Well.
From 1608 onward, when the King’s Men began occupying the indoor Blackfriars playhouse (as a winter house, meaning that they only used the outdoor Globe in summer?), Shakespeare turned to a more romantic style. His company had a great success with a revived and altered version of an old pastoral play called Mucedorus. It even featured a bear. The younger dramatist John Fletcher, meanwhile, sometimes working in collaboration with Francis Beaumont, was pioneering a new style of tragicomedy, a mix of romance and royalism laced with intrigue and pastoral excursions. Shakespeare experimented with this idiom in Cymbeline and it was presumably with his blessing that Fletcher eventually took over as the King’s Men’s company dramatist. The two writers apparently collaborated on three plays in the years 1612–14: a lost romance called Cardenio (based on the love-madness of a character in Cervantes’ Don Quixote), Henry VIII (originally staged with the title “All Is True”), and The Two Noble Kinsmen, a dramatization of Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale.” These were written after Shakespeare’s two final solo-authored plays, The Winter’s Tale, a self-consciously old-fashioned work dramatizing the pastoral romance of his old enemy Robert Greene, and The Tempest, which at one and the same time drew together multiple theatrical traditions, diverse reading, and contemporary interest in the fate of a ship that had been wrecked on the way to the New World.
The collaborations with Fletcher suggest that Shakespeare’s career ended with a slow fade rather than the sudden retirement supposed by the nineteenth-century Romantic critics who read Prospero’s epilogue to The Tempest as Shakespeare’s personal farewell to his art. In the last few years of his life Shakespeare certainly spent more of his time in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he became further involved in property dealing and litigation. But his London life also continued. In 1613 he made his first major London property purchase: a freehold house in the Blackfriars district, close to his company’s indoor theater. The Two Noble Kinsmen may have been written as late as 1614, and Shakespeare was in London on business a little over a year before he died of an unknown cause at home in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616, probably on his fifty-second birthday.
About half the sum of his works were published in his lifetime, in texts of variable quality. A few years after his death, his fellow actors began putting together an authorized edition of his complete Comedies, Histories and Tragedies. It appeared in 1623, in large “Folio” format. This collection of thirty-six plays gave Shakespeare his immortality. In the words of his fellow dramatist Ben Jonson, who contributed two poems of praise at the start of the Folio, the body of his work made him “a monument without a tomb”:
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read and praise to give…
He was not of an age, but for all time!
SHAKESPEARE’S WORKS:
A CHRONOLOGY
1589–91 ? Arden of Faversham (possible part authorship)
1589–92 The Taming of the Shrew
1589–92 ? Edward the Third (possible part authorship)
1591 The Second Part of Henry the Sixth, originally called
The First Part of the Contention Betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster (element of coauthorship possible)
1591 The Third Part of Henry the Sixth, originally called The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (element of co-authorship probable)
1591–92 The Two Gentlemen of Verona
1591–92; perhaps revised 1594 The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus (probably cowritten with, or revising an earlier version by, George Peele)
1592 The First Part of Henry the Sixth, probably with Thomas Nashe and others
1592/94 King Richard the Third
1593 Venus and Adonis (poem)
1593–94 The Rape of Lucrece (poem)
1593–1608 Sonnets (154 poems, published 1609 with A Lover’s Complaint, a poem of disputed authorship)
1592–94/1600–03 Sir Thomas More (a single scene for a play originally by Anthony Munday, with other revisions by Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, and Thomas Heywood)
1594 The Comedy of Errors
1595 Love’s Labour’s Lost
1595–97 Love’s Labour’s Won (a lost play, unless the original title for another comedy)
1595–96 A Midsummer Night’s Dream
1595–96 The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
1595–96 King Richard the Second
1595–97 The Life and Death of King John (possibly earlier)
1596–97 The Merchant of Venice
1596–97 The First Part of Henry the Fourth
1597–98 The Second Part of Henry the Fourth
1598 Much Ado About Nothing
1598–99 The Passionate Pilgrim (20 poems, some not by Shakespeare)
1599 The Life of Henry the Fifth
1599 “To the Queen” (epilogue for a court performance)
1599 As You Like It
1599 The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
1600–01 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (perhaps revising an earlier version)
1600–01 The Merry Wives of Windsor (perhaps revising version of 1597–99)
1601 “Let the Bird of Loudest Lay” (poem, known since 1807 as “The Phoenix and Turtle” [turtle-dove])
1601 Twelfth Night, or What You Will
1601–02 The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida
1604 The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
1604 Measure for Measure
1605 All’s Well That Ends Well
1605 The Life of Timon of Athens, with Thomas Middleton
1605–06 The Tragedy of King Lear
1605–08 ? contribution to The Four Plays in One (lost, except for A Yorkshire Tragedy, mostly by Thomas Middleton)
1606 The Tragedy of Macbeth (surviving text has additional scenes by Thomas Middleton)
1606–07 The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra
1608 The Tragedy of Coriolanus
1608 Pericles, Prince of Tyre, with George Wilkins
1610 The Tragedy of Cymbeline
1611 The Winter’s Tale
1611 The Tempest
1612–13 Cardenio, with John Fletcher (survives only in later adaptation called Double Falsehood by Lewis Theobald)
1613 Henry VIII (All Is True), with John Fletcher
1613–14 The Two Noble Kinsmen, with John Fletcher
FURTHER READING
AND VIEWING
CRITICAL APPROACHES
Bloom, Harold, ed., Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (1988). Excellent collection of critical essays offering variety of interpretations.
Callaghan, Dympna, ed., A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare (2000). Includes a short essay on Much Ado—“Gender, Class, and the Ideology of Comic Form: Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night”—by Mihoko Suzuki which focuses on class/gender relations.
Clamp, Mike, Cambridge Student Guide: Much Ado About Nothing (2002). Useful commentary with basic critical and contextual information.
Everett, Barbara, “Much Ado About Nothing: The Unsociable Comedy,” in English Comedy, ed. Michael Cordner, Peter Holland, and John Kerrigan (1994), pp. 68–84. Intricately grounded reading.
Howard, Jean E., “Renaissance Antitheatricality and the Politics of Gender and Rank in Much Ado About Nothing,” in Shakespeare Reproduced: The Text in History and Ideology, ed. Jean E. Howard and Marion F. O’Connor (1987), pp. 163–87. Strong political reading.
Mangan, Michael, A Preface to Shakespeare’s Comedies 1594–1603 (1996). Part 1 gives a broad overview of the role of comedy; part 2 offers a basic critical discussion of individual plays—Much Ado is on pp. 179–201.
Wynne-Davies, Marion, ed., New Casebooks: Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew (2001). Selection of five modern critical essays focusing on gender politics and early modern society; number four by Penny Gay discusses post–Second World War productions in relation to the changing social climate, reproduced from her As She Likes It: Shakespeare’s Unruly Women (1994).
THE PLAY IN PERFORMANCE
Branagh, Kenneth, Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (1993). Screenplay of Branagh’s film with notes and photographs.
Cox, John F., ed., Shakespeare in Production: Much Ado About Nothing (1997). Excellent introductory account of the play’s stage history.
Mason, Pamela, Text and Performance: Much Ado About Nothing (1992). Part 1 offers a useful overview of the play; part 2 discusses important productions from 1949 to 1990.
Raccah, Dominique, and Maria Macaisa, eds., Shakespeare in Performance: Much Ado About Nothing (2007). Useful student guide with accompanying CD.
Reeves, Saskia, Actors on Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing (2003). Entertaining, thoughtful account of the author’s experience of playing Beatrice in Cheek by Jowl’s 1998 production.
AVAILABLE ON DVD
Much Ado About Nothing directed by Joseph Papp (1980, DVD 2002). Film of 1973 New York Shakespeare Festival production: updates the play to 1910 America with Sam Waterston as Benedick and Kathleen Widdoes as Beatrice; Dogberry and the Watch are played as Keystone Kops. Lively and entertaining, but divided the critics.
Much Ado About Nothing directed by Stuart Burge (1984, DVD 2006). Lackluster version for the BBC television Complete Shakespeare series.
Much Ado About Nothing directed by Kenneth Branagh (1993, DVD 2003). Lush romantic version set in gorgeous Tuscan landscape. Very popular box-office success.
REFERENCES
1. Much Ado was not one of Shakespeare’s plays listed in Francis Meres’ commonplace book Palladis Tamia (1598), but Will Kempe left the Chamberlain’s Men in 1599, which suggests that the play was written between these dates, a theory borne out by stylistic and linguistic evidence.
2. Robert Latham and William Matthews, eds., The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Volume 3 (1970), p. 32. This diary entry may have referred to the premiere on 15 February 1662 or a later performance on 17 December in the same year.
3. Arthur Murphy, The Life of David Garrick, Esq., Volume I (1801), p. 389.
4. Charles E. L. Wingate, “Beatrice,” in his Shakespeare’s Heroines on the Stage (1895), pp. 31–58.
5. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Lichtenberg’s Visits to England, ed. and trans. Margaret L. Marc and W. H. Quarrell (1938), quoted in George Winchester Stone, Jr., and George M. Kahrl, “Garrick’s Greatest Comic Roles,” in David Garrick: A Critical Biography (1979), pp. 473–514.
6. Jeffrey Kahan, Much Ado About Nothing: Shakespeare in Performance (2007), p. 8.
7. Clement Scott, “Much Ado About Nothing,” in From “The Bells” to “King Arthur” (1897), pp. 247–58.
8. Vincent Sternroyd and Harcourt Williams, “Irving as Benedick,” in We Saw Him Act: A Symposium on the Art of Sir Henry Irving, ed. H. A. Saintsbury and Cecil Palmer (1939, repr. 1969), pp. 229–38.
9. Vincent Sternroyd in Sternroyd and Williams, “Irving as Benedick,” pp. 229–38.
10. Scott, “Much Ado About Nothing,” pp. 247–58.
11. Ellen Terry, The Story of My Life (1908). Can be downloaded at www.gutenberg.org/etext/12326.
12. Terry, The Story of My Life, VIII, “Work at the Lyceum.”
13. F. H. Mares in the introduction to his Cambridge edition of Much Ado About Nothing (1988), pp. 1–52.
14. J. C. Trewin, Shakespeare on the English Stage 1900–1964 (1964).
15. G. B. Shaw, in a letter to Ellen Terry, 3 June 1903, in Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence, ed. Christopher St. John (1932), pp. 293–94.
16.
The Times, London, 23 April 1904.
17. G. B. Shaw, Saturday Review, 11 February 1905.
18. The Times, London, 22 July 1955.
19. John Gielgud, “1946–1954,” in Gielgud: An Actor and His Time (1980), pp. 157–87.
20. Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 8 August 1957.
21. Henry Hewes, Saturday Review, 24 August 1957.
22. V. S. Pritchett, New Statesman, 6 September 1958.
23. The Times, London, 27 August 1958.
24. Alan Brien, Spectator, 5 September 1958, pp. 305–6.
25. Brooks Atkinson, New York Times, 26 June 1958.
26. Penelope Gilliatt, “Prodigals: Shakespeare in Italy,” in her Unholy Fools, Wits, Comics, Disturbers of the Peace: Film & Theatre (1973), pp. 330–33.
27. The Times, London, 17 February 1965.
28. B. A. Young, Financial Times, 17 February 1965.
29. Mel Gussow, New York Times, 18 August 1972.
30. Stanley Kauffman, New Republic, 9 September 1972, pp. 20, 33–34.
31. H. R. Coursen, “Anachronism and Papp’s Much Ado,” in Shakespeare on Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews, ed. J. C. Bulman and H. R. Coursen (1988), pp. 151–55.
32. Leslie Bennetts, New York Times, Section 2, 10 July 1988, pp. 1, 5.
33. Page R. Laws, Theatre Journal, 54, no. 2 (2002), pp. 305–7.
Much Ado About Nothing Page 19