'Much Ado About Nothing' is a comedy about courtships: a hasty one that nearly goes wrong and a hesitant one that leads to success. The delightful Beatrice and Benedick are reluctant while Hero, Beatrice's cousin, and Claudio, Bendick's comrade in arms, are overeager. In the original play, the men have returned from a military campaign in Sicily with hearts bent on marriage. Here they are World War I vets and the women are suffragettes. Their protofeminist zeal introduces a new level of complexity to the witty, agile, and sometimes insulting repartee between the lovers that is the play's trademark.