The story follows Beatrice and Benedick, two quick-witted and sarcastic individuals who are happily single, but whose friends believe they would make a great romantic match. Set in the Early Modern world, an era of ever-changing attitudes towards marriage and power, the play presents a society at once filled with progressive feminist impulses and countervailing forces rooted in traditional patriarchal values. With his astonishing wit and insight, Shakespeare explores the complexities that underlie these growing social tensions.
Setting: Southern Italy, Elizabethan period.