I recently watched a mediated performance of Much Ado About Nothing, starring Kenneth Branagh as Benedick, Emma Thompson as Beatrice. The wonderful Robert Sean Leonard played Claudio and a very young Kate Beckinsale appeared as Hero. This movie was fairly recent made in 1993, directed and adapted for screen by Branagh.
I have never read Much Ado About Nothing, but I was familiar with the plot, having read some critical essays which included it in their argument. I am going off the assumption that because it is Kenneth Branagh production, that it is so close to verbatim that I need not worry. His version of Hamlet is perhaps the best mediated performance I have ever seen.
(Google Image Search)
The plot is very Shakespearian: Benedick and Beatrice hate each other, and banter back and forth with great delight. When Benedick accompanies a Prince to her family’s estate to stay for a month, fireworks are sure to happen. The Prince’s stay is dominated however by one of his friends, Claudio falling head over heels for Hero, Beatrice’s younger cousin.
The Prince’s brother orchestrates a plan to break them up to get back as his brother. He sets up a situation where Hero looks like she’s given up her maiden head, and Claudio enraged, calls of the wedding and calls her a whore in front of the entire family and guests. It is soon discovered that this is not true, but by that time, Hero’s family has hidden her and lied saying she died in grief of Claudio’s words.
(Google Image Search)
They make Claudio plan to marry her other cousin, who is actually Hero, and in the end they are happily united. During all of this madness, the various parties trick Benedick and Beatrice into believing the other loves them. After some difficulty and a great Emma Thomspon scene where she demands Benedick kill Claudio for slandering Hero, they end up happily together. This makes them joyously happy and in true Shakespearian comedy, everyone ends up together, and almost everyone is happy. Again, Shakespeare shows his fondness of double weddings.
After recently seeing live Shakespeare play, I have some idea of how they stage these dramas. There are many differences I have noticed that make the mediated performance almost as enjoyable to the real experience.
(Google Image Search)
The first being: the close ups and variety of views. In plays depending on where you are seated, you do not always have the greatest views, and with the close ups you get to see expressions on the actor’s faces perfectly. Close ups allow you to see every expression on a given actors face; however, because you are focusing on one actor, you are missing what the others are doing at that time. However, this was a very lively film. There is a lot of dancing, parties, and a lot of action; almost too much, and the limiting of vision, in some ways allows you to see more because you have shots of just the party. So in some ways limiting the views is helpful.
There is also this marvelous double exposure scene with the two B’s after they have overheard the others talking about how they love each other. This would not have been possible on stage and was very well symbolic of the prodigious-ness of that moment in the play.
(Google Image Search)
The second reason this mediated performance was almost more enjoyable, was the lushness of the scenery. The scenery was so much more rich and exciting than stage scenery. This is no fault of stage performance; they have much more limited resources and space. It is nice though in the mediated performance, because it allows to them to do more things (like dance in fountains, bathing scenes, dramatic horse riding entrances, hide in the garden, ect.) with the characters.
Thirdly, the humor can still be put into mediated performances. There were many moments in this play that were hilarious and were just as good as on stage. The Monty Python-ish horse riding in some scenes was almost too much to handle!
Sadly though, the thing that always for me makes the live shows more enjoyable than the mediated performances is watching it with a whole group of people and laughing along with them. I watched this mediated performance by myself, and though I laughed, it doesn’t seem as good when there are other people laughing with you.
All and all, from what I can devise, this was a great version of Much Ado About Nothing, it certainly left me with a lot to say!
(Google Image Search)
No comments:
Post a Comment