SYNOPSIS:

This is an update of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Much Ado About Nothing, set on a US college campus. It’s about how a lie can become the truth, or swallow the truth, and how boys and girls navigate the transition to being men and women in love. Smart, funny juniors Bea and Ben argue, bait, diss and tease each other with such ferocity, their friends suspect they are secretly attracted to each other. They spar at a kegger to celebrate a wrestling team victory, and again at a Halloween dance, and at lunch in the cafeteria. After comparing notes about them at a bonfire, the friends stage fake gossipy conversations, at the library and the post office, one for each of them to overhear, to convince Bea and Ben each of the other’s love, and get them to acknowledge how they feel. Meanwhile, a much nastier practical joke makes college life scary for Bea’s shy, naive freshman cousin who is embarking on her first romantic relationship, with another freshman: a frat brother of Ben’s, a fellow wrestler named Charlie. [I have two versions of the script. In the one I think is more interesting, Bea and her cousin are Japanese-American. The cousin was born in Japan and her name is Hiroko; she goes in for posters of puppies and kittens in baskets, for Mickey Mouse notebooks, Hello, Kitty and so forth. I’ll refer to the character as Hiroko from now on, but I do have another version of the script in which Bea and her cousin are Caucasian and the cousin, Heather, is just a wide-eyed, shy, small-town American girl.] A coked-out, jaded upper-classman named John is bitter that he was thrown out of the frat Ben and Charlie are in by its president, Pete. John had sex with a girl passed out in his room during a party. The girl woke up, was freaked out about being date-raped, and dropped out. Now John lives in town, gets mad when Bea warns Hiroko at the kegger to stay away from him, and begins pseudo-stalking her – calling her and hanging up. John’s friend Ralph, still in the frat, depends on John for drugs. John gets Ralph to make a home-made porn tape with his girlfriend Megan. Then, John has a science nerd morph the video so that Hiroko appears to be the girl in bed with Ralph. He shows it to Charlie and Pete. Heartbroken, Charlie denounces Hiroko at a party in town meant to celebrate their engagement, calls her a whore and splashes champagne in her face. Hiroko is bewildered and devastated, as nasty graffiti about her appears around campus and people whisper and point; she is ready to drop out. Once Bea and Ben acknowledge that they’re in love, Bea demands he prove it by helping her defend her cousin, since Hiroko can’t defend herself. The altered DVD trick is exposed. John runs away and the science nerd is expelled. Charlie, Pete and Ralph see the dean and get punished for their roles in hurting Hiroko. Bea attends classes for her and helps her study; Hiroko makes it through her exams. At a party just before Christmas break, Bea is ready to be friendly again with Pete but dismayed that Hiroko and Charlie are back together. As for her and Ben, they are going to be trying the townie thing next term: living together off campus, perhaps loving and fighting in equal measure.

I HEARD A RUMOR