payment page
Scene Study prepares you to perform key scenes for your theater class or audition. We've got all the information you need for a great performance.
Excerpt from Act 2, Scene 3 Monologue: Benedick
|
Understanding the Given Circumstances
- Benedick and Beatrice have had a longstanding relationship of mockery and mutual disdain, but their characters are similar, and their disdain appears to mask an underlying attraction that they cannot acknowledge, even to themselves.
- Benedick has long criticized marriage and made fun of romantic love. Benedick has a reputation for cleverness and humor.
- Benedick’s friends, led by Don Pedro, have just finished playing a joke on Benedick, in which they allow him to overhear them talking about Beatrice as though she is in love with Benedick. The previous scene, one of the most famous comic scenes in Shakespeare, features Benedick trying to hide yet get closer to his friends to hear more, while they come up with ever more outrageous comments on Beatrice’s supposed passion.
- His friends have left the stage, and Benedick comes out of hiding to mull over his reaction to what he has heard.
Blocking and Movement
In theater, blocking is the process of planning the actors’ physical movements and positions. Be sure to show respect and establish trust when working with scene partners. As you prepare to block this scene, ask yourself the following questions:
- What scenic elements do you imagine are present in this scene? Shakespeare doesn’t usually require much scenery, but the previous scene requires some hiding places for Benedick. Do you imagine using some of that scenery, or would you prefer to move quickly away from the scenery and toward the audience?
- Since he is alone on stage, you might think Benedick is speaking to himself, but the most important goal for an actor in any soliloquy is to reach out to an audience and appeal to them. Comic soliloquies like this one deliberately break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience. How can your movements and gaze best reach the audience and hold their attention?
- The speech has many pauses and shifts as Benedick works through his argument. Can you use those as opportunities to shift your attention or move toward another section of the audience?
- This is not a soliloquy in which the speaker struggles to make up his mind. Benedick explains right away that the love he now thinks Beatrice has for him “must be requited.” Instead, the bulk of this speech is his attempt to work out a defense against the criticism he might get from friends for changing from someone who despises love and marriage to someone who seeks it. What can you do to emphasize the moments where he arrives at a particularly good turn of phrase?
- Benedick is smart and self-aware. He clearly knows that many of his arguments, such as “the world must be peopled,” are ridiculous and over the top, but the speech won’t be as funny if it looks like he is laughing at himself. Think about how you can maintain a deadpan delivery while leaning into exaggeration and logical flaws.
Meaning in Heightened Language
The first thing to do when approaching a piece of Shakespeare for performance or audition is to closely examine the text so that you have a clear understanding of it. Shakespeare wrote Much Ado About Nothing over 400 years ago, and the words Benedick uses are different from modern English. Begin by studying Act III, scene ii of SparkNotes’ No Fear Translation of Much Ado About Nothing, so you can be sure to know what each unfamiliar word or phrase means.
The language of this passage is mostly conversational, but Benedick’s method relies on two things the Elizabethans were fond of: legal defense and aphorisms. Elizabethan society was more litigious even than our own, and they loved a good legal argument. Shakespeare uses such arguments in the sonnets; here, Benedick speaks to the audience as if he is persuading a jury. As you prepare your performance, remember that everything you say should be persuasive, not philosophical or deliberative. The Elizabethans also loved nuggets of wisdom, such as proverbs, mottos, epigrams—aphorisms such as Benedick’s comment, “Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending.” People in this era admired these kinds of statements because they compressed truths into simple forms but also because they sounded good, which is what Benedick is relying on. Your performance—both your delivery and your movement—should rise to these statements and hold them up before moving on.
Full Act 2, Scene 3 Monologue: Benedick
|
