Much Ado About Nothing Feminist Analysis

Regarding Shakespeare, Dame Ellen Terry is quoted saying “Have you ever thought how much we all, and women especially, owe to Shakespeare for his vindication of women in these fearless, high-spirited, resolute and intelligent heroines?” While it’s certainly true that Shakespeare’s plays offer a wealth of strong female characters, most of his female characters still exist in a male-centric, male-dominated plots. This can pose an interesting challenge for a director who wants to reimagine a Shakespearean work as a piece of feminist theater. In September 2011, Taffety Punk Theater Company created a production of Much Ado About Nothing that reinterpreted the play as a female-driven text. While the production strayed far away from what the original production might have looked like, the production’s transformation into a female dominated show is able to reflect the cultural context of third-wave feminism that informs much of our contemporary feminist thought. In this way, this production is able to illuminate feminist themes already present in the text, rather than inventing themes that do not inherently exist in Much Ado About Nothing. …show more content…
With those roots in mind, this production used an all-female cast. Moreover, all of the male characters were played as women, rather than having female actors cross-dress and play men. Consequently, romantic relationships that present as heterosexual in Shakespeare’s original text transform into homosexual relationships with the new cast. While this casting decision may have roots in the all-male casts of Shakespeare’s time, this production completely flips that notion on its head and makes the homogeneity of the cast even more