Haunted by 'Much Ado'...

SDP: Day 1

First impressions:

Today I was told which play I would be designing for. I honestly couldn’t believe it when I found out that I was doing ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. Despite being my favourite of Shakespeare’s comedies, I feel as if ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ has HAUNTED me through-out my life. I have studied it twice (once at secondary school, and once for A-level), I already have a heavily annotated copy on my bookshelf in my student house, I could spiel-off quotes until the cows come home, I could name all the characters without pausing for breath, it was even the play that I decided to design for for my AUCB interview project!! (incidentally choosing to set it in the 1970s). But this isn't boasting, this is a rueful lament.

I literally couldn’t have been given a play that I know better, and therefore I couldn’t have been given a play that conflicts more with my number 1 stipulation. 

However, despite all my aspersions, I need to think of this in a positive light, and although I am dubious as to whether my road-weary experience of the play will taint my enthusiasm and excitement to work on it, there have got to be some huge advantages to knowing the play so comprehensively. 

I am interested to see in what time period the director is thinking of setting it in, and there is still a lot of potential for researching new areas of influence. It also means that I should be able to start work fairly shortly as I already have a deep understanding of all the characters.

I am also excited about designing for the element of disguise! This is a play of mistaken identities and disguise will be an interesting design challenge to overcome. Not to mention the beauty of the masquerade ball scene. 

I think the hardest thing for me with this project will be trying to over-come all my previous preconceptions about the play, all my previous visions that have built-up in my mind from endless studying, countless read-throughs, the Kenneth Branagh film, various live theatre adaptations, etc etc. All these things could potentially cloud my design visions, or could push me to do something completely different. Either way, it’s about time I drummed-up some excitement about this piece, so there’s nothing left to do until the first meeting other than pick-up my heavily-thumbed copy of the play, and do a little read-through with my housemates.

Knowing my luck, the director will want to set it in the seventies….