Short Summaries of Scholars' Essays on MAAN

One of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies, Much Ado about Nothing's appeal arises largely from the witty banter and charisma of Beatrice and Benedick, whose antagonistic relationship and eventual courtship are dramatized in the play's subplot

. However, the main plot of the play, involving the docile Hero and the boorish Claudio, is often viewed as a dramatic failure.

 The relationship between these plots, as well as Claudio's role in the problematic main plot, are popular areas of critical study. Debate regarding the play’s genre is also a topic of modern criticism, and many scholars have studied the play’s deviations from the conventions of romantic comedy.

Additionally, the characters' use of language and their view of its relation to political and social power, as well as the play's treatment of the problems related to knowledge and perception, garner much scholarly interest. In critiques of film and stage productions of Much Ado about Nothing, issues regarding characterization, genre, and gender are often discussed, particularly in Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film adaptation.

In his overview of Much Ado about Nothing, Sheldon P. Zitner (1993) discusses the nature of the play's plot construction, highlighting the connections between the Hero-Claudio main plot and the Beatrice-Benedick subplot.

 Zitner observes that the plots are linked through a number of formal devices, including deception, eavesdropping, and overhearing. Additionally, Zitner examines the play's characters, noting the relevance of contemporary Elizabethan marriage customs to Hero’s loyalty and obedience. Zitner contends that Hero’s passivity is in part explained by immaturity, and that many of Claudio's personality traits, including his immaturity, exemplify the “social style of Honour.”

 Beatrice and Benedick are also studied extensively by Zitner, who notes that the characters' unconventionality and wit set them apart from Hero and Claudio, but are not their only notable characteristics.
 Zitner comments on Beatrice's rejection and acceptance of various aspects of patriarchal society, noting that her obedience in her marriage to Benedick will have its boundaries.

As for Benedick, Zitner observes that his wit is used to mask his fear of marriage and his longing for Beatrice

. In John Wain's (1967) analysis of the play, Claudio is cited as the primary cause of the failure of the main plot.
 Wain states Shakespeare found the character of Claudio “unattractive,” which caused him to create a “cold, proud, self-regarding, inflexible” hero. Likewise, Richard Henze (1971) focuses on the character of Claudio, finding that it is Claudio, not Don John and his dishonesty, nor Beatrice and Benedick in their unconventionality, that poses the most formidable threat to social harmony.

Through Claudio, Henze states, Shakespeare depicted the power that malice attains when it appears respectable.

As Zitner points out, the plot of Much Ado about Nothing relies heavily on deception and the misunderstanding it produces.

Critics have also studied a related theme—the play’s treatment of knowledge and perception. Critic Nova Myhill (1999) finds that the numerous depictions of deception in the play highlight Shakespeare's methodology for creating different modes of interpretation.

 Myhill goes on to argue that while the audience typically assumes it possesses a privileged status in terms of eavesdropping, this notion is undercut by the fact that the characters are repeatedly deceived by their belief that eavesdropping has provided them with direct access to truth.

 Taking another approach, Carl Dennis (1973) explores the two modes of perception he maintains are at work in the play: wit and wisdom. Whereas wit relies on reason and sensory evidence, wisdom, explains Dennis, is related to a belief in intuitive methods of understanding.

 In the end, Dennis asserts, wit is portrayed as an unreliable mode of perception, and the fate of the characters depends on their willingness to reject what they perceive through their senses and approach life through faith.

The characters’ attitudes toward language and their use of language to achieve various ends is another area of critical concern. Camille Wells Slights (1993) claims that the characters in Much Ado about Nothing view language as the backbone of social harmony and interaction, contending that the play is primarily concerned with the social nature of language, and with the power of language as an instrument and indicator of social and political hierarchy.

 In her analysis, Slights discusses the ways characters use and view language, observing for example that Beatrice uses language to acquire independence in a patriarchal society, and that both Beatrice and Benedick fear the power of language to deceive and associate this danger with gender roles and sexual relationships.

 Like Slights, Maurice Hunt (2000) explores the ways in which the characters employ language, particularly patriarchal language—characterized by irreverence, aggression, and authoritarian tone and content. Hunt demonstrates the way in which this type of speech establishes social dominance through the transformation, dismissal, or oppression of the words and thoughts of others. Hunt observes that the male characters, as well as Beatrice, use patriarchal language to assert social dominance.

Concerns regarding the genre of Much Ado about Nothing form another area of critical study. Walter N. King (1964) maintains that the play is a comedy of manners, and that like other plays of this genre its central theme is the examination of a morally “flabby” aristocratic class that accepts the established social codes without question. King notes that the society remains essentially unchanged at the play’s end, which is expected in a comedy of manners where “the social health depends upon compromise, adjustment, resilience, not upon fundamental social change.” The critic further maintains that it is the characters’ use of wit that enables them to achieve social harmony.

Approaching the genre issue from another angle, Laurie E. Osborne (1990) examines Shakespeare's incorporation of elements of the Italian novella into the genre of English comedy. Osborne contends that through his linking of these two genres, Shakespeare explored the contradictions within comic conventions and the problems inherent in combining non-comic and non-dramatic materials with comedy.

Critics also explore issues of genre in their evaluation of modern productions of the play, such as Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing.

 Celestino Deleyto (1997) contends that Branagh's film belongs to the romantic comedy genre, and uses the play to gauge the changes that the genre has undergone in the last four centuries. Deleyto focuses on the sexual politics and gender tension found in the film, and finds that “[t]he culturally ingrained male fear of women is used and reversed by the film in order to produce a happy ending which, … ensures the continuity of the genre’s traditional structure.”

 Michael J. Collins (1997) also examines Branagh's film, contending that Branagh downplayed the original play's tension regarding gender roles in order to present the film as a typical, popular Hollywood romantic comedy.

 I

Joss Whedon's MAAN --- New York Times Review

Joss Whedon’s adaptation of “Much Ado About Nothing” — perhaps the 
liveliest and most purely delightful movie I have seen so far this year — draws out the essential screwball nature of Shakespeare’s comedy.

It may be the martini-toned black-and-white cinematography, the soigné Southern California setting, or the combative courtship of Amy Acker’s angular, sharp-tongued Beatrice and Alexis Denisof’s grouchy, hangdog Benedick, but from its very first scenes, Mr. Whedon’s film crackles with a busy, slightly wayward energy that recalls the classic romantic sparring of the studio era.

For Beatrice and Benedick there is a thin line between hate and love, and a clear line of succession links them to, say, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in “Bringing Up Baby” and Rock Hudson and Doris Day in “Lover Come Back.” At the same time, this is a bracingly modern production, well stocked with actors, none quite household names, whose faces will be familiar to fans of Mr. Whedon’s previous work, in particular television series like “Angel” and “Firefly.”

“Much Ado” was shot cheaply and quickly while the director was occupied with the mighty labor of “The Avengers,” and it is in every way superior to that bloated, busy blockbuster. Also shorter. Do not suppose that this is reflexive literary snobbery or a preposterous apple-and-orange comparison. Shakespeare’s knotty double plot, propelled by friendships, rivalries and a blithe spirit at once romantic and cynical, is a better vehicle for Mr. Whedon’s sensibilities than the glowering revenger’s tale that every superhero movie is forced, these days, to become.

The best parts of the “Avengers” were its bouts of verbal wit and playful dueling among characters uncomfortably ranged on the same side of a battle, evidence that Mr. Whedon cares more about character than about plot. As fans of “Firefly” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” well know, he has a special affection for articulate rebels. The faster they talk, the more he loves them.

The most exciting action in “Much Ado” is the way Beatrice, a diva of withering disdain, and Benedick, a maestro of gruff misogyny, argue themselves into a state of starry-eyed mutual infatuation. Their amours are aided by the mischief of friends and kin — Reed Diamond’s Don Pedro is especially fine — who recognize the desire lurking behind the anti-couple’s ostentatious contempt for each other.

Photo

Ashley Johnson and Jillian Morgese in "Much Ado About Nothing," directed by Joss Whedon. Credit Elsa Guillet-Chapuis/Roadside Attractions

Their prickly romance is entwined with the tale of a younger, simpler pair of lovers: Beatrice’s cousin Hero (Jillian Morgese) and Claudio (Fran Kranz), a member of the retinue of soldiers that also includes Benedick. Their union is threatened by the scheming of Don John (Sean Maher) and his treacherous companions, who conspire to wreck Hero’s honor partly to wound her father, Leonato (Clark Gregg), at whose big, suburban house everyone is staying.

You do not have to have stayed awake in your high school English class to know how it all ends. Shakespeare is an eternal rebuke to modern spoiler sensitivity. His audiences always knew how a play would wrap up, and they did not enjoy themselves any less. (Today’s movie audiences are the same but have been brainwashed to believe otherwise.) A good deal of the pleasure in “Much Ado” comes from the exquisite deferral of the inevitable resolution, and the intensity of the tears — Hero’s especially, but also Leonato’s — that are shed on the way to a joyous ending.

These are matched by spontaneous, giddy bursts of laughter. Some are supplied by Mr. Gregg, the most reliably funny and doggedly human presence in the “Iron Man”-“Thor”-“Avengers” cycle of mechanical marvels. 

But any version of this play stands or falls by its Dogberry, the bumbling constable whose logical and verbal pratfalls are their own kind of wisdom. Dogberry, perpetually aggrieved and secretly noble, is like a Samuel Beckett character, and Nathan Fillion (the former misbehaving captain of Serenity) plays him like a weary cop from a police show on the brink of cancellation, resigned to the bureaucratic indignities and petty absurdities that surround him.

Here I should confess a bias. I prefer my Shakespeare in modern clothing and with American accents, and so I like Mr. Whedon’s take on “Much Ado About Nothing” better than Kenneth Branagh’s star-studded, fancy-dress 1993 version. 

In this one the costumes, the sets and the voices anchor the play in a pop-cultural dimension where it sparkles effortlessly, and a few loose ends and incongruities only increase the fun. The Italian political context in which Shakespeare embedded his couples was never very plausible or coherent, and here it is enough to know that they dwell in a world of money, power, shifting allegiance and factional intrigue.

And sex. While not terribly explicit, this “Much Ado” has a sly, robust eroticism entirely appropriate to Shakespeare’s text, which abounds in earthy wordplay. The title itself is a dirty Elizabethan double entendre, and the actors relish the naughty nuances of their dialogue. The flirting and swooning have some heat, which goes a long way to making the movie as cool as it is.

“Much Ado About Nothing” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It’s filthier than your English teacher let on.

How Branagh Cut and Rearranged MAAN for the Screen

  Introduction to the 1993 Film Much Ado About Nothing

   

Introduction

Watching a good performance of a play brings much to its audience that cannot be experienced by reading the play. For example, the playgoer sees real people with their individual expressions and mannerisms, and in costumes and settings intended to highlight their actions. 

If the viewer doesn't understand every word or line, the action or expression often conveys the meaning. Live theater has a special power to excite, inspire, and involve the playgoer with the action and characters on the stage.

A well-produced, well-directed, and well-cast film may accomplish most of what occurs in a theater, with the added advantages of close-ups, speech amplification, greater variety and realism of settings, and special effects not possible on the stage. A film is not necessarily better than a stage production, but rather a different kind of experience with the same story material.

England's Kenneth Branagh is extensively trained and experienced in the production and performance of Shakespeare's plays on the British stage. With his own special viewpoints and skills, he has brought several of them to film, including Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, and King Henry V.

His 1993 film of Much Ado About Nothing is an outstanding adaptation of the play that benefits from his judicious cutting and rearrangement of text, as well as from his casting. He has filmed on location in and around an actual sunny Italian villa of appropriate age and condition, the Villa Vignamaggio in Tuscany. The setting contributes greatly to qualities of timelessness and isolation from the rest of the world, as well as to its visual impact.

Casting

The cast of the film adaptation is headed by Branagh himself as Benedick and Emma Thompson (Branagh's wife at the time) as Beatrice. The princely brothers are played by American actors Denzel Washington (Don Pedro) and Keanu Reaves (Don John), and Claudio is played by Robert Sean Leonard. Michael Keaton takes his portrayal of Dogberry to the very edge of buffoonery, and the credulous Leonato is played effectively by Richard Briers. Other characters are portrayed by actors who seem completely comfortable with Shakespeare's language and lines.

New Opening

The film immediately establishes a lighthearted mood in a new opening scene: First, over a black screen, a voice slowly recites the first verse of the song from Act II, Scene 3, "Sigh no more, ladies." During this recitation, the words of the first verse appear phrase by phrase on the screen. As the second verse is being read, the sun-washed villa is seen at a distance from a nearby hill, first in a painting that Leonato is creating, then in its reality. Then the camera pans across a carefree scene of a picnic with residents of the villa lounging in the grass and enjoying Beatrice's recitation of the verses from a small book.

Soon after she finishes the last line, the messenger who opens Act I, Scene 1, rides in on horseback. The light and leisurely quality of this opening is shaded by Beatrice's obvious enjoyment of the song's cynicism about the faithlessness of men (a theme of the play).

Cuts and Pacing

The action of the first scene follows the playscript sequence, but with cuts of about half the written text, resulting in a considerably faster pace. During the much-abbreviated scene with the messenger, the relationships between Hero and Claudio and between Beatrice and Benedick are quickly established through facial expressions, gestures, and actions as well as the lines.

At the point in mid-scene when Don Pedro and his men appear in the play, another new scene without dialogue is inserted. This new scene shows the villa's residents hurriedly and boisterously bathing and donning clean clothes, while the arriving soldiers do the same. The play's action resumes with a refreshed Don Pedro and his company formally greeting a similarly renewed Leonato and household. The scene continues apace. Overall, the scene is cut by more than half, and yet the omissions are seamless to any viewer who has not memorized the lines or is not following the script.

Branagh has omitted or cut to the bone several subsequent scenes and their lines, sometimes inserting in their place a visual scene that conveys the incident more dramatically than the words. At other times, he has cut lines and thinned out long speeches to keep the story moving and to eliminate unnecessary details.

 For example, Act I, Scene 2 — a very short scene between Leonato and his brother — is cut completely, so the viewer is spared Antonio's confused report about Don Pedro and Hero. Instead the viewer is immediately plunged into Scene 3, introducing the dark side of the story with Don John and his two confederates, Borachio and Conrade.

Other major cuts include:

Act II, Scene 1: Almost all the initial ambiguous conversation between Don Pedro and Hero has been cut.

Act II, Scene 3, and Act III, Scene 1: Many of the lines among the "conspirators" as they are setting up the eavesdropping episodes of Beatrice and Benedick have been dropped. Instead, the two scenes are primarily the eaves dropping, moving quickly and smoothly from Benedick's to Beatrice's without pause. These two connected scenes are brought to a close with two joyful images superimposed on one another: Beatrice soaring high on a swing and Benedick jumping around in a fountain, both obviously delighted to learn that they are loved.

Act III, Scene 2: Most of the teasing of Benedick by Don Pedro and Claudio has been cut. Instead, a scene is introduced in which Benedick's friends observe him posing before a mirror to adjust his hair and a scarf.

Act III, Scene 2: In the play, Don John lays the foundation for Hero's apparent promiscuity after the dance by talking with Claudio and Don Pedro. That part of this scene has been cut. Instead, on the wedding eve, a few of those lines are used when Don John leads them to a window where they observe Borachio making love to a woman (Margaret) he calls Hero. The scene is enhanced by Claudio's attempt to scream at the pair, Don John's muffling of Claudio, and another view of the lovemakers, immediately followed by a view of Hero asleep in her bed (obviously not in the same room).

Act III, Scene 4: The scene among the women before the wedding has been dropped.

Act V, Scene 3: The scene at the tomb begins with a nighttime candlelight procession to the tomb. At the tomb, Claudio reads the epitaph to Hero and musicians play and sing the short song. No other lines are included.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Branagh retains most of Benedick's monologues in their entirety. 

Changes in Sequence

Branagh has resequenced several scenes or parts of scenes to good effect. For example:

In the dance scene of Act II, Scene 1, the overheard snatches of conversation among masked pairs are presented in a different sequence.

The scheme to disgrace Hero with a scene at the window is discussed by Don John and Borachio much later in the film (after Act III, Scene 3, instead of as Act II, Scene 2). This is immediately followed by Don John's revelation to Claudio and Don Pedro (formerly Act III, Scene 2) and the scene at the window (not staged in the play).

 This complete resequencing and tightening of conversation is quite well done, making the whole deception activity more unified and believable.

Benedick's attempts at poetry and song, originally in Act V, Scene 2, are moved to the morning of the second wedding scene, after the tomb scene (Act V, Scene 3), where it seems most appropriate and is more related to the revelations about poetry in that wedding scene.

None of the cuts and changes in sequence alter the story substantially; instead, they clarify the story line and facilitate its pace. 

                                                                      Enhancements.

 As noted earlier, film can include visual effects and enhancements to the story not possible on the stage.

Several of these have already been identified: for example, the opening view of the villa, the bathing scene, the overlaid scene of Beatrice on the swing and Benedick in the fountain, and the lovemaking scene at the window. Other enhancements of note:

Borachio is seen eavesdropping on Claudio and Don Pedro as they discuss the plan for Don Pedro to talk with Hero about marrying Claudio.

As Don John and his men pass Hero, Leonato, and Beatrice in a hallway — after Don John has made tentative plans to disrupt Claudio's proposal — Don John stops to kiss Hero's hand, a gesture of contempt rather than honor. This is then followed by Beatrice's comments about Don John.

During Benedick's eavesdropping on his friends, he tries clumsily to maneuver a folding chair, which eventually lands him on the ground at the moment when he hears that Beatrice really loves him.

Whenever Dogberry and Verges appear or leave, they gallop absurdly on foot as if they were on horses.

Most of the villa's residents are seen at a huge banquet the evening before the intended wedding. Claudio and Hero are observed in intimate conversation and hand-holding. From that bright scene, the viewer is suddenly taken outdoors where several flashes of lightning burst across a night sky — a fitting transition to the next scene, later that evening, when Don John approaches Claudio and Don Pedro to tell them about Hero's infidelity and to lead them to the window where they can see for themselves.

 The sequence of visual scenes effectively develops a sense of impending trouble.

Not only does a messenger arrive at the end to announce the capture of Don John, but Don John himself is brought in allowing Benedick to deliver his last line about "devising brave punishments" directly to the prisoner.

The film closes with a boisterous dance of dozens of the villa's residents and guests all around the elaborate grounds and gardens of the villa with the camera moving upward and away leaving the viewer with a beautiful panorama of joyful celebration.

Regardless of the other ways one experiences Much Ado About Nothing — on the stage or from a book — one can expect an enriching new experience watching Branagh's film.

Shakespeare's World Wide Popularity

Shakespeare more popular abroad than in Britain, study finds

Survey of 18,000 people in 15 countries suggests Shakespeare more popular in Mexico, more relevant in Brazil and better understood in India than he is at home

A scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, staged by actors, dancers, martial arts experts, musicians and street acrobats from across India and Sri Lanka.  Photograph:           David Levene for the Guardian

Shakespeare is more popular and better understood in emerging economies such as Brazil, India, China, Mexico and Turkey than he is in the UK, a new report for the British Council suggests. 

A survey of 18,000 people in 15 countries reveals, for example, that 88% of surveyed Mexicans like Shakespeare, compared with only 59% of British people; 84% of Brazilians said they found him relevant to today’s world, compared with 57% in the UK; and 83% of Indians said they understood him, far more than the 58% of Britons.

Overall, Shakespeare’s popularity abroad stands at 65%, compared with 59% in the UK. 

Should this be a source of national shame? “I certainly don’t think we should beat ourselves up about it,” said Rosemary Hilhorst, director of the British Council’s Shakespeare Lives programme. “It is not a huge difference in terms of percentages.

“What we should do is think about how we make Shakespeare more relevant and accessible for youngsters today so they get in touch with the fantastic stories that are there in a way they feel is relevant for them.”

The research suggests it is experience of Shakespeare at school which plays the biggest part – studying the original text can put people off for life.

Hilhorst said most Britons were taught Shakespeare in his original English while abroad there were often translations which used a more contemporary, accessible language.

That conclusion would explain why the “do you like Shakespeare” figures are roughly the same among English-speaking countries – USA (63%), Australia (60%) and the UK (59%). In the top five are India (89%), Mexico (88%), Brazil (87%), Turkey (79%) and South Africa (73%).

The two nations with the lowest scores are France (51%), perhaps reflecting Voltaire’s description of Shakespeare’s works as “an enormous dunghill”, and Germany (44%).

The report’s wider conclusions are that Shakespeare is good for the British economy and has a positive impact on Britain’s influence in the world.

For example, more than a third of people questioned said Shakespeare made them feel more positive about the UK in general, with the figures highest in India (62%) and Brazil (57%). Of those people, 70% were interested in visiting the UK as tourists.

Hilhorst said it was important to recognise Shakespeare’s global popularity. “

We can often underestimate him,” she said. “It’s Elizabethan, it’s funny costumes, it’s all in the past, but actually the vast majority of education systems around the world do still have Shakespeare on the curriculum.

“People enjoy the stories, they take him seriously and many a politician will quote Shakespeare. We need to realise the fantastic archive we’ve got.”

The report, called All the World’s, was prepared as part of the British Council’s Shakespeare Lives programme that is taking Shakespeare to more than 140 countries on an unprecedented scale.

That includes a touring programme of 20 films from the BFI national archive, lots of debates, exhibitions and readings and a partnership with Voluntary Services Overseas, which will use Shakespeare to help more children in some of the world’s poorest countries to get an education.

 The survey also found that Romeo and Juliet were Shakespeare’s best known characters and noted that people enjoyed and understood Shakespeare more when they saw a staged play or a film.

 

The Secret of Shakespeare Universal Appeal

1. Shakespeare's Distributed Personality

   by Peter J. Leithart 4 . 12 . 16
    

Stephen Greenblatt uses the anthropological theory of Alfred Gell to explain Shakespeare's universal appeal, particularly Gell's notion of the “distributed personality”: This refers to “the ability of an artist to fashion something - Gell called it an ‘index' - that carries agency, his own and that of others, into the world where it can act and be acted upon in turn."

 A part of the personhood of the creator is detached from his body and survives after he or she has ceased physically to exist. Transformed often out of recognition, feared or attacked or reverenced, these redistributed parts live on, generating new experiences, triggering inferences, harming or rewarding those they encounter, arousing love.”

Though “we speak of Shakespeare’s works as if they were stable reflections of his original intentions,” the reality is that they are universal because they are “so amenable to metamorphosis. They have left his world, passed into ours, and become part of us.”

Shakespeare not only enters into us, but enters into all of us: “Shakespeare is the embodiment worldwide of a creative achievement that does not remain within narrow boundaries of the nation-state or lend itself to the secure possession of a particular faction or speak only for this or that chosen group. He is the antithesis of intolerant provinciality and fanaticism. He could make with effortless grace the leap from Stratford to Kabul, from English to Dari.”

Subversive in Shakespeare's own time - appealing to the groundlings as well as to the aristocrats - the plays have not ceased to be subversive, or perceived to be so.

 Greenblatt tells of an Afghan production of Love's Labours Lost that ran afoul of the Taliban: “What had seemed like a vigorous cultural renaissance in Afghanistan quickly faded and died. In the wake of the resurgence of the Taliban, Qais Akbar Omar and all the others who had had the temerity to mount Shakespeare’s delicious comedy of love were in terrible trouble. They are now, every one of them, in exile in different parts of the world.”

Purists may protest, but the adaptability of Shakespeare's plays has been exploited for a very long time. Richard III can be set, without distortion, in Fascist Everyland; Coriolanus is a story of modern as well as Roman war, politics, betrayal, and sacrifice; the comedic romances delight and move people across the globe.

 Adaptation was inherent in the original performances, as Shakespeare wrote plays about ancient Athens that looked like plays about Englishmen, plays about Rome that resonated with English political and religious struggles, plays about fantasy worlds populated by English types.

A Woman Playing a Female In a Shakespeare Play???????

Secret lives of women who broke taboo to act in Shakespeare

  They were rarities in Restoration theatre. But, as a new exhibition shows, the Bard’s first actresses were brave pioneers

Will Kempe, Richard Burbage and David Garrick, may not be household names today, but their reputations live on in the theatre. What, though, of the actresses who appeared in the same companies? Their names, as well as their reputations, have mostly been forgotten.

Shakespeare’s female roles were played by boys or young men until 1660, but new research by the British Library has uncovered details of the careers of the few, ground-breaking women who began to take on major Shakespearean characters in the face of the prejudice of their times.

Regarded as prostitutes or, at best, titillating diversions, these six or seven prominent actresses had to carve out places inside previously all-male companies. They also had to deal with wealthy male theatre-goers paying a little extra each night to watch them dress in the wings.

This month the London-based library will put on display its copy of a remarkable prologue, written to warn an audience that a real actress would appear that night as Desdemona in Othello. Composed by the actor and poet Thomas Jordan in the winter of 1660, the prologue promises that the actress is “as far from being what you call a Whore, As Desdemona injur’d by the Moor”.

His words, initially spoken to an audience at the Vere Street theatre in Lincoln’s Inn, join other rare documents as a key part of a new exhibition, Shakespeare in Ten Acts, marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Jordan’s prologue quickly underlines the sexual potency of the historic moment, while seeming to downplay it:

 “I come unknown to any of the rest,

to tell you news, I saw the Lady dress’t,

the woman playes to day, mistake me not,

No man in Gown, or Page in Petty-Coat,

A woman to my knowledge, yet I cann’t

(If I should dye) make affidavit on’t.”

The British Library exhibition will also include an original copy of the 1662 royal proclamation that licensed women to appear again on the professional stage. All theatre had been banned by a Puritan ordinance of 1647, but in 1660 two performing companies, one run by William Davenant and another by Thomas Killigrew, were granted licences.

Two years later, Charles II, a fan of the theatre, had decreed “that all the women’s parts to be acted in either of the said two companies for the time to come may be portrayed by women”.

It was Killigrew’s company that staged a production of Othello that winter, and the exhibition’s lead curator, Zoë Wilcox, now believes she knows who took the lead female role, although a note later scrawled in the margin suggests it might have been a Mrs Morris. “There is very little written evidence, but we think it was actually a woman called Ann Marshall. That best fits the dates,” said Wilcox.

Marshall, also known as Mrs Quin, was a Restoration celebrity, as was her younger sister, Rebecca.

It had once been thought likely that this first female Desdemona was played by Margaret Hughes, the woman who would go on to join the original Theatre Royal company of Drury Lane and enjoy a successful stage career, along with the attentions of Prince Rupert, a cousin of Charles II.

Other early leading ladies of the era were Ann Barry and Mary Saunderson (or Mrs Betterton), the first woman to portray Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth.

New Shakespearean actresses provoked strong reactions. On 3 January 1661, Pepys wrote of seeing Killigrew’s King’s Company putting on the play The Beggars’ Bush: “The first time that ever I saw Women come upon the stage.” For some years afterwards, these stars were seen as fair game for voyeuristic fans who relished a peep show element at the theatre.

The new exhibition features the pages of a journal called The Female Tatler, which bemoaned the trend for men to sit backstage at the theatre and watch the female performers get dressed, rather than watching the play.

Cross-dressing also caused a degree of sexual frisson among theatre-goers and prompted wider moralising in society. While petty criminal Moll Cutpurse (Mary Frith), the famous London “Roaring Girl” who regularly dressed as a man, was the subject of a popular play and appeared in person in a stage sketch to promote the show, she was later arrested for indecency.

Similarly, Edward Kynaston, a male “boy player” who had continued to play lead female roles, developed a huge following among men and women. “His rich female fans used to take him out for public carriage rides in the park dressed in full Shakespearean costume,” said Wilcox.

Maxine Peake and Dame Harriet Walter, contemporary actresses who have played male Shakespearean roles in recent productions, are featured in video interviews. Both point to the gender fluidity that has always been celebrated in his plays.

“Obviously I was aware of the history of people playing Hamlet in the sort of Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt times,” said Walter, who played Brutus in Julius Caesar in an all-female production at the Donmar Warehouse in London.

“But there were lots more … there were many more actresses playing male roles in history than we are aware of. So that again is a question: why hasn’t that been written about more?”

WORDS OF WARNING

Extracts from Thomas Jordan’s 1660 prologue to Othello, The Moor of Venice, warning the audience that a woman would be playing Desdemona.

The Vere Street Theatre production in London’s Lincoln’s Inn is thought to have starred Ann Marshall.

“...Do you not twitter Gentlemen? I know

You will be censuring, do’t fairly though;

‘Tis possible a vertuous [sic] woman may

Abhor all sorts of looseness, and yet play;”

“...But Gentlemen you that as judges sit

In the Star-Chamber of the house, the Pit;

Have modest thoughts of her; pray, do not run

To give her visits when the play is done.”

The prologue sums up by underlining the disadvantages of a man playing a female lead:

“But to the point; in this reforming age

We have intents to civilize the Stage.

Our women are defective, and so siz’d

You’d think they were some of the Guard disguiz’d

For (to speak truth) men act, that are between

Forty and fifty, Wenches of fifteen;

With bone so large, and nerve so incomplyant,

When you call Desdemona, enter Giant.”