The word "ado" means busy activity, fuss or trouble. So the play is about a lot of fuss over nothing.
Most of the plot is about making something out of nothing. Don Pedro and friends manufacture a love affair between Beatrice and Benedick, by telling each of them the other feels something for them. In the same way, the accusation against Hero is based on nothing; Hero's "funeral" takes place without a corpse; and the "second wife" Leonato offers Claudio doesn't exist either - she is just Hero disguised by a veil.
It's also central to the play's themes - these may be best summed up by Benedick's words at the end: "For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion." In this play everybody is wrong about something, and everybody has to learn to judge more carefully, to think more, and above all not to make a big fuss about nothing.
Most of the plot is about making something out of nothing. Don Pedro and friends manufacture a love affair between Beatrice and Benedick, by telling each of them the other feels something for them. In the same way, the accusation against Hero is based on nothing; Hero's "funeral" takes place without a corpse; and the "second wife" Leonato offers Claudio doesn't exist either - she is just Hero disguised by a veil.
It's also central to the play's themes - these may be best summed up by Benedick's words at the end: "For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion." In this play everybody is wrong about something, and everybody has to learn to judge more carefully, to think more, and above all not to make a big fuss about nothing.
