Last
night I had the opportunity to attend a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will,
produced by the Strollers Theatre company which performs in the Bartell Theatre
here in Madison, Wisconsin (thank you, Project Famous, for the complementary
tickets!).
night I had the opportunity to attend a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will,
produced by the Strollers Theatre company which performs in the Bartell Theatre
here in Madison, Wisconsin (thank you, Project Famous, for the complementary
tickets!).
The
play, under the direction of Greg Harris, uses the traditional Shakespearean
script but takes place in present day with modern (or maybe a bit retro) set
design and costuming. While I’ve seen a
number of Shakespeare plays produced live or on the big screen, I have to admit
up front that I am no scholar of the Elizabethan era bard. And in fact, if I
hadn’t quickly Googled Twelfth Night just
before the lights went down and the curtain opened and read the Wikipedia
entry, I would have been totally lost as far as the storyline goes, despite the
fact that the acting was dynamic enough to keep the audience engaged regardless
of whether we (meaning me) understood the plot or not.
Who Wrote Shakespeare’s Plays?
play, under the direction of Greg Harris, uses the traditional Shakespearean
script but takes place in present day with modern (or maybe a bit retro) set
design and costuming. While I’ve seen a
number of Shakespeare plays produced live or on the big screen, I have to admit
up front that I am no scholar of the Elizabethan era bard. And in fact, if I
hadn’t quickly Googled Twelfth Night just
before the lights went down and the curtain opened and read the Wikipedia
entry, I would have been totally lost as far as the storyline goes, despite the
fact that the acting was dynamic enough to keep the audience engaged regardless
of whether we (meaning me) understood the plot or not.
Who Wrote Shakespeare’s Plays?
Shakespeare
is a unique beast in the literary world. The grand master of complex plots, he
seems to have generated quite a controversy over who actually penned all those
iconic plays. Were they written by the man whose gravestone carries the name
William Shakespeare? Or were they, in fact, written by someone else…or perhaps
several someone elses? I had seen a documentary on PBS a number of
years ago that made a convincing case for the ghost writer to have been
Christopher Marlowe. Other top contenders appear to be Sir Francis Bacon,
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and more recently two different women,
Mary Sidney and Amelia Bassano (who at one point had an affair with Christopher
Marlowe—ah, dear reader, the plot thickens!) among many others.
is a unique beast in the literary world. The grand master of complex plots, he
seems to have generated quite a controversy over who actually penned all those
iconic plays. Were they written by the man whose gravestone carries the name
William Shakespeare? Or were they, in fact, written by someone else…or perhaps
several someone elses? I had seen a documentary on PBS a number of
years ago that made a convincing case for the ghost writer to have been
Christopher Marlowe. Other top contenders appear to be Sir Francis Bacon,
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and more recently two different women,
Mary Sidney and Amelia Bassano (who at one point had an affair with Christopher
Marlowe—ah, dear reader, the plot thickens!) among many others.
For
those who love a good literary mystery, here are few titles about the
authorship of the Shakespearean plays to get you started:
those who love a good literary mystery, here are few titles about the
authorship of the Shakespearean plays to get you started:
- Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro (2010)
- Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare? by
Robin P. Williams (2011) - The Dark Lady: The Woman Who Wrote Shakespeare’sPlays by John Hudson (2014)
- The Case for Shakespeare: The End of the AuthorshipQuestion by Scott McCrea (2005)
Understanding Shakespeare’s Plays
But if you are less concerned with all the
controversy surrounding who actually wrote the plays you were forced to study
in high school, but just want to understand what they are all about, you might
turn to the PBS series Shakespeare Uncovered.
This series uses a variety of popular actors to walk
the viewer through the plots, subplots, characters, and themes of the most
popular of Shakespeare’s plays. Joseph
Fiennes, who first caught my eye in Shakespeare
in Love, narrates Romeo & Juliet;
Morgan Freeman tackles, The Taming of
the Shrew; and Kim Cattrall helps us understand the motivations in Anthony and Cleopatra. As of this writing, these and others in Shakespeare Uncovered Series II are
available in full episodes on the PBS website. Shakespeare Uncovered Series I, which focuses on Hamlet, Macbeth, and Henry the V, among others, is available
on DVD through Amazon.
What I like about this series is that each episode
always begins by taking the viewer back to the Globe Theatre in London, but
includes clips from a variety of theatrical productions as well as from popular
movies based on the various plays.
Shakespeare does not make for easy reading or easy
viewing. But when you think about the fact that this body of work was written
(by whomever) over 400 years ago and are still being produced today, it’s
really quite amazing. The themes in his plays are so universal that writers
often adapt them to modern storytelling, as found in movies as diverse as West Side Story (Romeo and Juliet), Ten Things I Hate About You (Taming of the Shrew), She’s the Man (Twelfth Night) and The Lion
King (Hamlet) .
A playwright who is as popular as ever 400 years
later… I wonder how many of today’s writers will have that kind of legacy?
