preview

William Shakespeare 's Much Ado About Nothing

Decent Essays

Theatre has changed in over the years. Back then plays catered to the audience and to please the king. However, nowadays, plays are produced for money and audiences. In Shakespeare’s time, a lot of plays were written to center around politics and retelling of historical England and Europe. Shakespeare’s plays are written in prose. Shakespeare’s plays were also performed at playhouses around England. Today’s theatre shares many similarities with the production from Shakespeare’s time, however they markedly differ. There are indeed many differences, for example, language, gender roles, and venue. These differences would change the retelling of Much Ado About Nothing in Shakespeare times because of its modern production.
First, language absolutely would have played a vital role in Shakespeare’s time. Today Shakespeare’s words have massively changed and lost its meaning in modern retelling theatre. The pronunciation, familiar and formal, and verb endings have lost its meaning. In the play, some characters like Claudio, Dan Pedro, and Beatrice indeed simply slip on “you” and “thou”. For example, in the modern retelling film, Claudio slips on thou, and Benedick on the other reflects on “you”. Claudio as well uses the formal "you" when Don Pedro joins him and Benedick. The formal “you” and “thou” was frequently used throughout the film. In Shakespeare’s time, “thee”, “thou”, “thy”, “thine” would have been used to form jokes. In the film, the scene about Benedick and Beatrice

Get Access