sergebroom | definitely much ado about nothing

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We watched the DVD of Much Ado About Nothing last night. No, not the 1993 movie with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson. Nor was it the filming of a stage presentation of the play.

When Sue put that BBC production on her NetFlix queue, she thought it was going to be the play transposed to the setting of a newscenter, with Beatrice and Benedick as its anchors. That could have worked. Unfortunately, what this turned out to be was part of a “Shakespeare Retold” series. In other words, they took the play as the inspiration for a so-so story. Gone are the witty barbs exchanged by two people who love each other. The plot follows the broad outlines of the original, but throws out most of the good stuff. The only saving graces are why Don John does what he does in this version, and Hero (played by Billie Piper) doesn’t forgive Claudio for doubting her.

Oh well.

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From:

pedanther

I missed that version of Ado, but I did see The Taming of the Shrew, which had the same problem. Somehow it's a lot less interesting when the wittiest insult Katherine can come up with is "Swivel on it, you bastard!"

And A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was... rather odd.

From:

serge-lj.livejournal.com

"Swivel on it"...

Jeez. It sounds like there was more wit in Moonlighting's spoof of that play, with double-entendres about instruments that need tuning, and about pianist envy.

By the way, in what way was that rendition of Midsummer odd? Not that we're planning to watch it. Your post pretty much clinched it for us, and Sue took that DVD series off her NetFlix queue. But I am curious.

Have you ever seen King of Texas? It's a movie that took King Lear and moved it to a western setting, with Patrick Stewart as Lear. It updated the dialogues, but, as far as I know, it stuck very close to the play's original plot.

From:

pedanther

What wasn't odd about that rendition of Midsummer?

Actually, the thing that struck me as most odd about it was that the writer tried to make all the humans into actual characters with motivations and stuff, instead of just walking plot devices. It made it harder to laugh at them when things went wrong, which among other things led to the fairies intervening at the end to make the rude mechanicals' entertainment a success, because the (TV-watching) audience would have been saddened instead of amused if it had gone wrong; and at the end - where Shakespeare is able to tie up the young lovers' plot rapidly and tidily ("You two together. You two together. Presto! Happy endings all around!") - the writer of this version has to go flat out, with not much time left, to convince the audience that the lovers will accept and be happy with the people they've been paired with, that their parents (who are now also people instead of plot devices) will accept the way things have shaken out, and so on. Even after resorting to a deus ex machina that would have been worn-out in Shakespeare's time, I don't think he quite pulls it off.

There's a fun sequence with Hermia's father and Oberon commiserating about their respective relationship troubles, though.

I haven't seen King of Texas, although I intend to get around to it someday. Someday...

From:

serge-lj.livejournal.com

the lovers will accept and be happy with the people they've been paired with

You've never read Stephen Baxter's mystery short story about the aftermath of the play, have you?