Messina:

• Where eavesdropping and gossip are central to a community
• Where it is truly “a man’s world”
• Where male solidarity and “a code of honor” are paramount
• Where a daughter is the property of the father
• Where a father is more likely to believe a man’s word over his daughter’s
• Where a woman’s innocence and virtue define her worth
• Where women can be independent, but are more likely, and more desirably, quiet and docile
• Where the people who profess disdain for romantic love end up falling in love
• Where deception, practical jokes and trickery are used to help and to harm.

All of this and more is Messina in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. My immediate challenge in approaching this comedy was to find a locale and period that spoke to me, one where all of these “truths” would be plausible, a setting that would reveal insights into the play and the characters as well as make it instantly accessible to the audience. For Much Ado About Nothing is far more than a story about couples; it is a comedy about a community, a town with a specific culture and a proud tradition.

I believe that a small late-19th-Century town in America fills the bill perfectly. I think that Italy was as exotic a frontier to Shakespeare as the West is to us today.

Frontier towns during the late 19th Century were certainly full of gossip. No question that this was a man’s world and that a legendary code of honor applied. Women were certainly second class. Even so there were some unique opportunities. History shows us that some worked in businesses alongside men or even ran their own enterprises. This is not unlike Beatrice, who is not about to cower in the shadows of a man’s world or sacrifice her femininity to convention.

Benedick is strikingly similar to the iconic Western bachelor who professes disdain for romantic love but ends up falling in love and, indeed, getting “hitched.”  Dogberry, not unlike the Wild West sheriff, spews malapropisms, often appears out of his element, yet ultimately succeeds in the capture of the “bad guy.” And, of course, there has to be at least one villain in any town. Don John and his cohorts fill the parts perfectly.

As with all of Shakespeare’s work, no single production can hope to represent all of its possibilities, but I hope that this approach will bring a fresh and entertaining look at one of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies.

Jane Page, Director