Entry 130: Character Work for Much Ado About Nothing in Much Ado About Nothing

I decided after rehearsal tonight that I wanted to do a little bit of character study on Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing so if you have no interest in that, feel free to skip.

Part of this started as I considered the similarities of Benedick and Sherlock Holmes in some areas. Like… both of them are very proud of their wit. Both of them are comfortable in their specific form of masculinity. Neither of them particularly cares about women generally; but each of them has THE WOMAN. That one woman that they feel can best them, that they begrudgingly respect, that they recognize is THE ONE WOMAN that can strike at the heart of their personal identity. But of course, these two characters are wildly different. So, take their differences from a perspective of similarities.
Sherlock Holmes is personally cold, stand offish. Benedick isn’t. But that stems from how they view their wit. Sherlock Holmes’ “wit” is wrapped up into how much smarter he is than everyone and how he observes what others do not. So… he defines his wit by how it distances him from other people. Benedick’s “wit” is wrapped up into how much funnier he is than everyone and how he can say things that make him seems smart and funny. So… he defines his wit by how it makes others laugh and feel jocularity. So… similar in WIT but with goals and connections that are wildly different. Now going into the next bit, we’ll just handwave that both Sherlock and Benedick are both a little misogynist but mostly using our modern judgements. But it’s important to address that both of them have “certain ideas about women”… Holmes thinks that they are trivial, Benedick thinks that women make cuckolds of men (it isn’t in many of the films but it is all over the original script.) Just hold on to that as we continue. This wit both men identify with as related to human connection also stems into the interactions with THE WOMAN. Because Holmes’ wit is bound up in how his wit distances him from others… the connection with The Woman is one of his closest personal connections and yet she’s never mentioned outside of one story and DESPITE every modern retelling… there is no heat between The Woman and Holmes. Merely… he’s acknowledging The Woman’s ability. Because Benedick’s wit is bound up in how his wit connects him with others… the connection with The Woman is one of his closest personal connections and so she’s absolutely the romantic center of his universe. Even against his own values; but that’s why she’s THE woman. No woman shall come into his good graces… but for THE woman he acknowledges as his equal.

I wanted to return briefly to the misogyny mentioned above. Because I think it betrays a specific type of cowardice in Benedick and how to play that can be nuanced. You see, Benedick (throughout the play) mentions how he will never be married because women make cuckolds of men. This is a repeating theme! A repeating repeating theme. Now analyze that from the perspective of his Garden Speech as he criticizes Claudio, despite Claudio being nowhere within earshot. He contemplates all the strong masculine traits that Claudio will lose in the employ of love. How being in love itself turns men into these fawning, weak spirited poets! So of course a woman would make a man a cuckold. After she has successfully got her man, in all of his womanly finery, she realizes that she misses the MAN. So, while maintaining the homelife and her now broken spirited man; she has no choice but to find her Masculine Man outside of the marriage. And were she a true woman might well risk turning that man cuckold as well! Or so MIGHT think Benedick. The trick here is to discern if he is being honest or if this is merely a cover for his true fear. You can play it either way. Personally, I like the idea of him (as a soldier) seeing his Violent Manly Man friends turning into these… prissy poets, falling over themselves for the attention of a woman… and being genuinely a little terrified of the power of love to so transform a man. Which I think means you can play Benedick’s failure at poetry to a deeper meaning. He is so terrified that love will make poets of men and that the office of love will so transform a man… and yet, he is let down that no such transformation occurs. He cannot suddenly concoct a poem or a song of such beauty as to woo; and he is a little put out by it.

Maybe that’s a stretch. Just… some interesting early character work I was doing.

Then I thought about “How do you play the connection between Benedick and Beatrice? And I realized that over the whole play that question has to be answered with one question: Which ending do you want? Not the “scripted ending” but the “What happened to the characters after curtain call?” ending. And again, I may be totally off base here but part of this process is exploring, discovering, trying, and retrying… creating, destroying, creating again.

So, the three endings as I see it.... Happy Ending, The Real Ending, and The Brutal Real Ending.

The Happy Ending means Benedick and Beatrice get married, stay in love, and became that old married couple that still laughs in their 80s while ripping apart random strangers because The Roast Talents Never Fade. If this is the ending you want for your characters? Then you need to start at the very beginning of the story. Beatrice and Benedick love each other before the show even starts. They rip each other, but in the friendly way one does with someone they trust deeply and care for uniquely. This turns the Masquerade into another classic Shakespeare Confusion Trick. Benedick, in disguise, is doing the “I’m teasing you, this is fun” move… but Beatrice doesn’t see it that way. She sees this as a transgression because if Benedick is slamming her when she’s not even present… it isn’t playful banter… he’s being a genuine dick insulting her behind her back. The kind of love that says “I’ll call him a dickhead, but only to his face.” So, upset at this transgression, she unloads with both barrels. HOWEVER, since it is actually Benedick in the mask, he didn’t transgress, he’s just… teasing in a different way (to his perspective) and so this… wild unloading goes to his core. Teasing each other is all great fun; but the prince’s fool and they laugh at him, and they beat him is a step too far! Perhaps, he fears, it has NOT been flirty banter and there is a genuine rancor and horrid disposition in the woman. Thus his uncharacteristically mean spirited comments to the Prince before the Masquerade ends. This, then, re-frames the two scenes that follow. INSTEAD of the company tricking Beatrice and Benedick into loving one another, they inadvertently merely heal the previous scene’s hurts. Benedick reframes Beatrice’s cruelty as not being directed TO HIM but as enhanced by the emotional turmoil she is undertaking due to her now apparent and obvious love for him. She wasn’t being horrible to him out of hating him; but out of love that she is struggling with. So to, Beatrice can then reframe Benedick’s pernicious slanders as not being outside of Benedick’s character but as a symptom of that which he wishes to keep hidden. THIS THEN makes the love each confesses to not be “How easy they are to trick!” but turns it into “How easily salved an emotional wound can be when there is love between two people.” This then carries through the Wedding in that… Benedick isn’t betraying his closest friends because of a woman he was tricked into loving… Benedick makes his choice to support a family he loves, truly. Which then makes the struggled choice more poignant. He loves Beatrice. A love he at first could not admit to, then thought he lost, and then was affirmed by her own words. He loves his comrades and wishes to be a good friend even in trying times. So, when Beatrice says “Kill Claudio” the thought is repugnant to him. “I would not destroy my brother to please my sister” mentality. But as he sees Beatrice’ genuine dismay, anger, and heartbreak… he is swayed. He loves nothing in the world so well as her; and her pain is very much his own. So, at the end of the play when all things are made well again? Beatrice, as a good cousin, is happy for Hero to be with whom she loves and now hurting Claudio would be to hurt the family Benedick loves, truly. So the “wrapped up” ending between the two is the logical result. And the coyness with which Benedick and Beatrice treat one another before being sold out by their own letters? It is the coyness of people who were once KNOWN for one thing but have accepted the opposite. It is not “I do not love you” so much as it is, “But the guys are here.... okay, I’ll… okay, I love you, too.” And thus there live they as merry as the day is long; for love and the right partner is a many splendored thing, and this is my conclusion.

The Real Ending merely takes everything at face value. Ultimately, after the curtain falls, at some point… Beatrice and Benedick are no longer together. The bickering and foining grows old, Benedick’s travels outside of Messina drives him to jealousies that Beatrice is too confident and independent to put up with. It doesn’t work in the end. If this is the ending you want for your characters? Then you need to start at the very beginning of the story. Beatrice and Benedick have a bitter respect built up between them. Some past communications or interactions have set them against one another but not so deeply that they wish actual harm to one another. They rip each other, but in the form of banter that one uses with a rival- someone you would like to defeat, not destroy. This turns the Masquerade into a battle field and Benedick launches an improper attack, striking while masked. Receiving a blow below the belt, Beatrice delivers in kind and, as is her ability, proves that you don’t shoot for the Queen unless you aim to kill the Queen! Wounded by such well struck attacks, Benedick has no other avenue than to turn his frustrations to his own attack which lacks subtly and wit because it is not a well crafted verse of playful retort but a genuine attack of words against one who has wronged him. This then takes the two scenes that follow and say, “They are what they say they are.” This is people tricking Beatrice and Benedick into loving one another… taking the war between the two and making it evidence of feelings that may not have existed prior, but grow into existence as they are heard. Making the two wise and witty people easily tricked or at least “easily” tricked in this manner. Therefore, then, the Wedding is Benedick confused and uncertain merely taking up with any who would deign explain the situation a bit; thus turning to Leonato and the Friar’s side. Afterward, speaking with Beatrice, they confess their love and he is so wrapped up in the feeling he doesn’t realize “Bid me do anything for thee” could have a dark answer. As he realizes how much in earnest she is, he joins that earnestness and challenges Claudio. Upon discovering that Claudio had been deceived and had not committed an evil, they reconcile upon Claudio making things right with the family. And the coyness with which Benedick and Beatrice treat one another before being sold out by their own letters? It is the off-ramp that both of them are seeking out of insecurity. It is not “I love you” or “I do not love you” and it becomes “I don’t love you… unless you love me. So, do you love me?” but played to both of them. Two stubborn people who would rather stubborn themselves out of a relationship than risk anything to give it an honest shot. Whereby, if not for the letters, the two would have merely parted and likely doubled down on their pre-existing war of words relationship. And a relationship that needs outside actors to keep it from devolving into a war of words? Cannot survive.

The Brutal Real Ending unfortunately mixes both of the above. There is love but there is bickering. There is the passion of “I will swear by it that you love me and I will make him eat it that says I love not you!” and the “passion” of “rather than hold three words conference with this harpy!” Which creates a passionate, volatile, inconsistent, unpredictable relationship.... the kind of relationship that enters into unhealthy repeating cycles. Meaning that Benedick and Beatrice (in this ending) are almost doomed into this cycle of “Given time apart, they settle into a playful war of words. Then they begin to remember their love for one another. They get together romantically. Things start to change, the bickering increases, the love wanes, and Benedick rides off into the sunset happy to be rid of the woman… until he starts to miss her, reignites the war of words between them for at least it is still keeping them connected, and the cycle starts all over again! If this is the ending you want, you just lean into the emotions of the interactions. The beginning of the play is the War of Words on display transitioning into Remembering He Likes Her (to start the Masquerade) being interrupted by a “Rides off into the Sunset” level of animosity (end the Masquerade) so the Ticking Them bits are merely turbocharging the timetable so the pair can quickly get back into where “they begin to remember their love for one another” (as this is when they first see it in the other at all!) This crests at the Wedding when he takes the step of “We love each other.” and She pushes back with “We do, but we can’t be together yet.” Thus making Benedick’s actions regarding Claudio in this one more a thing of “Okay, you’re fucking up shit with my lady. This has to stop!” This makes the ending bit a little more toxic. The characters have reached a place of “Things are right in the world again. Benedick may ride off into the sunset with the Prince… but… what if there’s still a chance of getting with Beatrice?” And she says no, there is no chance, so Benedick returns the rejection… until both are faced with evidence that they DO like each other so they should get together. And they decide, reluctantly, that one will have the other and vice versa because we are in the Love Phase of our toxic relationship cycle.

Just my thoughts. I am very tempted to give this to our Beatrice or at least engage her in dialogue about this to see if she has any ideas, suggestions, opposing view points, or a preference of how to play it. If it were me, honestly, I’d play towards the Happy Ending. I like the idea of the “trickery” not being about making people fall in love; but about healing hurts that shouldn’t have existed.