man!". Phillip Collington claims that "Beatrice wishes she were a man because she wants Benedick to punish those who merely pretend to be men". Love and deception One of the reoccurring questions asked by generations of performers and directors is whether Beatrice and Benedick actually have feelings for each other or are merely tricked into an illusion of love. Scholars such as Richard Henze see the deception of Beatrice and Benedick, that by which they are led to believe the other is in love with them, serves as an end to their individual self-deceptions that they are not in love with each other. Scholars following in Scott's footsteps believing Beatrice to be inspired by Emilia Pia, have interpreted Beatrice's concealment of her love for Benedict as a form of sprezzatura. C. T. Prouty argues that Beatrice and Benedick are a pair of true lovers and are thereby the antithesis of Claudio and Hero's "mariage de convenance". Comparison to other Shakespeare heroines G. Wilson Knight claims that Beatrice is unlike Rosaline (Love's Labour's Lost) and Rosalind (As You Like It) because she does not take a disguise but instead shows her intellect and claims space in male-dominated society. Beatrice has also been compared to Katherina from The Taming of the Shrew due to their shared shrewishness. Katherina and Petruchio as well as Rosaline and Berowne are seen by some to be Shakespeare's precursors to Beatrice and Benedick. Performance history Theatre Asia In 1961, Zhu Xijuan played Beatrice with Shanghai xiju (Shanghai drama) at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Zhu's performance was heavily influenced by the Stanislavski system of acting. In Terrence Knapp's 1979 production of Karasawagi, the Japanese title of Much Ado About Nothing, the characters were all given Japanese names. Beatrice was called Tori. Because of the change of setting from Messina under Spanish rule to Meji-era Japan, Beatrice's line "Kill Claudio" made contextual sense due to the Japanese kinship system and principle of bushido (honour). In 1986, Much Ado About Nothing was adapted into Huangmei opera. The role of Beatrice was played by Ma Lan. There were some difficulties in adapting the character of Beatrice to the Huangmei opera format because Beatrice's audacity in deciding to remain single is incompatible with the traditional Huangmei setting of feudal China. To account for Beatrice's behaviour, Much Ado About Nothing was set in China without specifying the time period. Europe In 1983, the