Can somebody please sum up the wedding scene in much ado about nothing?
Remember that, in Elizabethan comedies, there is normally a scene where things take a “darker” turn. The “bad guy” appears to be gaining control, at least momentarily. Audiences in those days would have known that, by play’s end, things would be put right. So. The wedding scene. Don John, who has declared himself the enemy of his half-brother Don Pedro, has persuaded Don Pedro and Claudio that Claudio’s fiance, Hero, has been unfaithful. The elaborate charade that convinces Claudio and Pedro of Hero’s infidelity occurs OFFSTAGE (unlike the ridiculous depiction of it in Branagh’s film). So, when Pedro and Claudio show up at Leonato’s house for the wedding, they’re acting a little bit weird, but we (the audience) don’t know exactly what’s up. It turns out that Claudio and Pedro have come to “out” Hero for her (alleged) affair, and to publicly shame her. It looks as though Don John’s plot has succeeded. Because she really IS innocent, Hero faints dead away, and Claudio and Pedro exit. Bea
