Shakespeare: Character Study

(A lot of other character interpretations of both characters feature in my other blog posts.)

Hero, for me, is in her early twenties. She is a fairly quiet character but has her times when she can show off her slightly more dominant side to her. She is surrounded by people by I don't necessarily see someone who she is especially close to, friend wise apart from Ursula. This gives me a slight indication that she is definitely a family kind of person. She is, at one stage lucky with love and then just as quickly unlucky. But to the main point, that she is has been written as a very secretive character. No real information about her is to be said in the play Much Ado About Nothing, so most of my research relies on independent thoughts and ideas on to what she says and how she is around others etc. 

My final costume design.

In a slightly dated version of Much Ado, Kate Beckinsale plays her. At the time, she looks in her early twenties but most importantly she wears a simple white dress. White, as a colour, symbolises innocence, goodness, purity and virginity. And, to me, Hero has all of the aspects listed. The white also shows some sort of calmness which I could easily link to Hero. Angels are always, always, always described to be wearing white also, which actually matches well to how highly Claudio speaks of her in Act 1, Scene 1. The kindness and calmness shines through when she keeps silent when Claudio publicly shames her despite having the opportunity to snap back, I see this being because she is surprised at such an accusation, proving that she is so innocent to even believe the accusation- leading her to quite stereotypically faint from such a thing. I can see this because, at this point in the scene, she keeps quiet. It is Beatrice whom ever speaks up for Hero, and for the rest of the play Hero is kept on the low. But it, her innocence, could also be seen when she speaks quite honestly of Beatrice- "but nature never framed a woman's heart of  prouder stuff than that of Beatrice"- In modern translation, for me it reads that nature never made a heart that was as proud and tough than Beatrice's. I started off saying this line with some cruel tone, as I had originally thought that this was another of her negative lines towards Beatrice. But, Hero is actually being honest. She says that she has never met anyone with a heart such as a Beatrice's which proves Hero's innocence and kindness towards her cousin. She talks more nicely about Beatrice, unlike Ursula who admittedly gets a bit carried away-"sure, sure, such carping is not commendable" - which means that Beatrice' pickiness towards men is not admirable, Hero jumps straight in to stop Ursula here, almost in an act of protection of her cousin Beatrice, which again proves her kindness and innocence, as she doesn't want to play this game with the outcome of her cousin hating against her, its all in good sport for her cousin; it has its good intentions.

White: Kate Beckinsale and Emma Thompson
 as Hero and Beatrice

The simpleness of the dress, as seen on the right, shows off her true beauty. Hero here is beautiful, and it fits well as to why Claudio falls for her instantly. Beckinsale, at the time was young, which again proves her innocence as young people tend to be of a more innocent nature.
I want to have my version of Hero in some item of clothing that is white, to sort of keep up the tradition and also to have the meaning behind the colour there too. I have a flowy white top, that looks very festival-like but is also white and simple. So it should work perfectly as to how I want Hero to look. I will probably give her denim shorts to match the colours and analysis I did earlier on with the men's navy uniforms (in the Kate Beckinsale version of Much Ado.) I came to the conclusion that the blue showed the good characters, hence why Don John is wearing black in the image (see blog post 1.) The shorts, admittedly are quite short which some might say ruins her innocence, but in this era (21st century) it is the trend to wear short shorts. To finish off this outfit, she will be wearing bright purple wellies!! The colour has no real relevance's to Hero but its a nice bright colour which could relate to her bubbly personality.
The two images below gave me ideas as to how I want to dress Hero.

White blouse and denim shorts

Checkered shirt and shorts.

Other characteristics that I have discovered whilst researching through Much Ado is that she is very young at heart. It takes her very little time to fall in love with Claudio, which gives her the more young/child act to her. She is kind hearted and well-liked, which makes me link this to the things she says. All of her dialogue flows off the tongue with some ease. Its nice to the ears and very easily understood. Shakespeare might have done this on purpose in order to paint Hero as the 'heroine' of the play. With a bit of 'play on words', Hero is very much the heroine of the play. A short definition of a heroine reads: 'the chief female character in a book, play or film who is typically identified with good qualities and with whom the reader is expected to sympathise' - the definition fully describes how Shakespeare has written Hero, and although the name doesn't automatically strike 'she-is- the heroine- in-the-play' it is definitely a clever play on words from Shakespeare (which is all we can expect from the word King himself.)

 At times throughout the play, I see Hero as a 'bit without a backbone'. I don't think it is obvious nor overpowering and definitely not something that is constant reoccurring but I can see where her
her subtle dominance helps her out mostly. The times in which she does show her dominance gives off an element of 'sass' in her character, which so far has been quite good fun to play- "and truly I'll devise some honest slanders to stain my cousin with- this is her playing the game, but in a fairly polite and 'fun' way, but majority of the other scenes, she lets everyone else do the work.
But, to reiterate her backboneless moments is shown through silence. When Claudio publicly shames her, she has nothing to say. In a sense, she took on the 'you will be ruled by your father' line too seriously, and is allowing Claudio to rule/walk all over her. Here, I speak as though the word 'father' is just a male figure, which allows me to say that Claudio has his moment of ruling her. The backboneless and perhaps kindness shines through, as she has nothing to say when he does completely embarrass her. She is then all too keen to take Claudio back at the end of it all.
The slightly quieter side of her is shown through her lack of lines throughout the play, although she takes the lead in her main scene, against the other four main characters she has the least amount of lines. For example, in act 2, scene 1 she has one line but the rest of the time she is busy reacting to what the other three (Beatrice, Isabelle and Leonato) have to say. This takes me onto her relationship with her father. I have, before, said that her father is probably quite dominant over her because of her not having a mother to help bring her up. "I trust you will be ruled by your father" proves this, he will rule her in which suggests Leonato perhaps doesn't want Hero to marry because she is, to him, very much a 'daddy's girl.'
Her more dominant side shines when she leads the 'game' scene, Act 1, Scene 3. The beginning of this scene she is very much taking the lead by planning what her and Ursula shall say when Beatrice enters. It's quite clear that she isn't doing this in a over-dominant way, but she is definitely placing herself higher up in this whole 'game.' The way she is instructing both Margaret and Ursula on what to do and say when Beatrice enters, proves she has the dominance to keep things her own way-but not in a spoilt way. An example of her dominance could be: "Whisper her ear...Our talk must only be of Benedick..." The two words in bold highlight the main emphasis in which the dominance is seen, its subtle but definitely noticeable. She also has the most to say during the scene, she rambles on with a couple of long paragraphs of speech and sort of leaves Margaret in the position that she has nothing to contribute by the end of it. I think this dominance could be because of Hero's mother. Her mother
is never introduced nor mentioned throughout the whole piece. For this reason, I can only assume that perhaps her mother left, or died. Arranged marriages was the only way for marriage in the Elizabethan times, so it was very likely Hero's mother was forced to marry Leonato, however contradicting myself, divorce was very rare: so perhaps death to Hero's mother proves the best possibility. Which could also explain as to why she is never mentioned, so perhaps a very recent death? So the fact that she may have just been brought up by her father, Leonato, could mean that she has worked hard to big herself up a bit. If she was quiet and took the back seat, chances are she would be bullied for being brought up by a single father (as it was most probably looked down upon.) She was also, probably, brought up to be ruled by her father, "I trust you will be ruled by your father"~Isabelle to Hero [Act 1, Scene 3.] and so she feels if she stands her ground a bit more, she will perhaps get away with being 'ruled by her father.' I still don't think she is overly dominant, but there is a definite element of it there.

 Hero also falls in love in a flash. In the original versions of Much Ado, Claudio and Hero fall in love at the masked ball,we have are using the idea of a silent disco instead,  despite being masked and not being able to see one another. To me, this says that Shakespeare believed in loving a person, not just beauty. But in contradiction to that, her beauty is all the Claudio loves- "in mine eye she is the sweetest lady that I ever looked on." But Shakespeare's tells us, through this story (Much Ado), that the young and innocent love in which Hero and Claudio have both fallen for, is fatal. But not only is it fatal, it is a lesson for us as the audience to learn but most importantly the audience of the Elizabethan era. Love like Hero and Claudio's was probably very rare back then, so it has its uses for the Elizabethans too. He tells us that young love isn't a simple as we all want it to, but shows us that despite the fact Hero was hurt, she is a strong woman-similarly to Queen Elizabeth at the time- whom got back up after falling. So Hero is also strong. Her strong side is something that we didn't show in our version, but it features in the script. After the happy ending, she says how "one Hero died defiled, but I do live. And surely as I do live, I am a maid!." Here she says how a part of her died but a stronger part grew and lived on. This could be another hidden way in which Shakespeare has told us that she is strong and that the male role has actually made her stronger; her dad being the other male.

Isabelle is the wife of Leonato. And I know I've spoken a lot about how Hero has no mother, but Isabelle is an adapted character. She has been adapted from Antonio, an uncle to Hero. So despite Isabelle playing Hero's mother in our version, she is written by Shakespeare with no mention of a mother. I want these two to play an old, hippy-type couple. As husband and wife, we will act as the two festival managers; in keeping to the festival setting we have decided. We want to make these two characters as eccentric as possible. We sort of want to create them into past-hippies; whom have really lived the hippy life throughout the 80's etc and who now manage the festivals for the younger generations of themselves. As parents to Hero, it would make sense that Hero is also very hippie-like which helps add to our whole festival setting.

Someone who is Isabelle in one, would  be Jennifer Saunders who plays Edina Monsoon in an award-winning comedy,Absolutely Fabulous'. Saunders plays a drink/drug lover who's aim remains to stay 'young and hip'. She's twice divorced and is extremely eccentric which is just how I want to play her. The scene in which I play Isabelle is short with little lines for her, but understand how I would've played her if I'd have got the full opportunity to. 

     

Hero has been such a treat to play, from the beginning I had set my mind on the fact she would be too loud for me to play, but looking back on the whole project, I really managed to develop her into to exactly what I had wanted to become. She has taught me an awful lot and the whole project has taught me about the ways of Shakespeare and the clever, hidden things to look out for as I anticipate to continue acting in years to come.