Shakespeare, Decaffeinated

The Hungarian mathematician Alfréd Rényi once said, "A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems." The same might be said about writers and books -- or plays. 

London's first coffeehouse opened in 1652 and was an instant hit. With not much exaggeration, it's been said coffee fueled the Enlightenment. As one recent account of London coffeehouses on the website Public Domain Review notes,

"Remember -- until the mid-seventeenth century, most people in England were either slightly — or very -- drunk all of the time. Drink London’s fetid river water at your own peril; most people wisely favoured watered-down ale or beer (“small beer”). The arrival of coffee, then, triggered a dawn of sobriety that laid the foundations for truly spectacular economic growth in the decades that followed as people thought clearly for the first time. The stock exchange, insurance industry, and auctioneering: all burst into life in 17th-century coffeehouses — in Jonathan’s, Lloyd’s, and Garraway’s — spawning the credit, security, and markets that facilitated the dramatic expansion of Britain’s network of global trade in Asia, Africa and America."

In the spring of 1575, Oxford wrote back to Lord Burghley from Paris that in his travels from Venice and beyond he intended to "bestow two or three months to see Constantinope and some part of Greece." That plus the fact that King Henri III of France had given Oxford letters of introduction to the Sultan's court in Constantinople suggest it's at least possible that the man Elizabeth called her "Turk" did in fact visit Turkey.

For me, when I was researching and assembling "Shakespeare" by Another Name, Turkey became a bridge too far in piecing together the most likely itinerary for Oxford's Italian, Adriatic, Mediterranean (and Aegean and Black Sea??) travels. I just couldn't make it all fit, and Turkey just seemed too far out of the likely orbit.

But there it is. Oxford said he wanted to go. And he had letters of passage from the King of France to give him entry.

There the coffee certainly flowed like water. Er... well at least syrupy water. A Turkish proverb from the time said coffee is best served "black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love."

Given how much Italy Oxford brought back to England with him in 1576, I'm inclined to suspect -- given the absence of Turkey (and coffee!) in his life and works and in the "Shakespeare" canon as well -- he never quite made it to Sultan Murad III's court.

The age of "Shakespeare" was still some 50 years before the dawn of the age of coffee in England. Hamlet written with the benefit of caffeine: It's a curious thought experiment at least, though I suspect it will forever be only just that. 

"Long Day's Journey Into Denmark" -- a talk in New York on Jan. 20

On Monday, Jan. 20 (Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in the U.S.), I'll be giving a talk after the Acting Company's production of Hamlet at the Pearl Theatre in New York City. 

The play begins at 7 p.m., and the talk (approx. 25 minutes) will be after the performance. A question and answer period will follow.  

It's titled "Long Day's Journey Into Denmark: Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford and the Radical Autobiography of Hamlet."

Tickets can be ordered here. 

Cast info here. About the company: 

The Acting Company was founded by theater and film legend John Houseman along with current Producer Margot Harley, Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, David Ogden Stiers and a dozen other graduates of the first class of Juilliard’s Drama Division.  Now in its 41st Season, it has won a TONY for Excellence in Theater while touring to 48 states and 10 foreign countries – performing, engaging students and building new audiences for the theater.  In addition to Mr. Kline and Ms. LuPone, Rainn Wilson, Jesse L. Martin, Jeffrey Wright, Frances Conroy, Harriet Harris, Hamish Linklater, David Schramm and Keith David all began their careers with The Acting Company along with 300 others who have carved out careers in the theater, TV and film.

A fan letter to ... The Courtier

Below, a guest post by author John Lowry Lamb about Baldassare Castiglione's The Courtier.  

The first English translation of Castiglione's  The Courtier was published in 1561. Thomas Hoby's English translation (from its original Italian) is often used to this day and can be found in its entirety on Google Books. Then eleven years later, England saw its first translation of this courtly etiquette book into the lingua franca of the court, Latin. It is this 1572 Latin edition of The Courtier that Edward de Vere became involved with.

Think of The Courtier as a sort of answer to Machiavelli's The Prince – an austere, dark treatise on how to succeed in politics. The book offers Castiglione's comments on a similar subject matter presenting an alternate, more altruistic approach to court behavior. There can be little doubt that Edward de Vere was responsible for the publication, as he himself composed the introduction to the translation by a man named Bartholomew Clerke. While most Elizabethan writers/patrons crafted brief introductions of a few sentences, Edward de Vere wrote lengthy, gorgeously written piece which honors not only Castiglione but Clerke, too. 

Generation "Anonymous": A fresh new voice revives a long-lost composer (hint: "Shakespeare"?)

Earlier this month, I received an email from a cellist based in New York state who has developed a "narrative concert" based around the music of the Elizabethan composer Thomas Weelkes. Her band, Rasputina, are musically rediscovering and reinterpreting Weelkes' canon -- and reconsidering the argument first put forward by Oxfordian researcher Eric Altschuler in the early 2000s that Oxford wrote Weelkes' music and/or lyrics.

Here's the video trailer for Rasputina's "Fa La La": 

Melora Creager, "directress" of Rasputina -- with a sheaf of musical credits including playing with Nirvana on their final 1994 European tour -- says "Fa La La" is slated to be premiered in New York in the fall of 2013. She hopes to tour the show around the country (the world?) thereafter. 

Still to come, a transcript of my interview with Creager. 

In the meantime, after the jump, her brief description of her vision for "Fa La La" and how the Shakespeare authorship controversy, among other things, provides grist for some tremendous music. 

Write What You Know

Novelist Nathan Englander has a new piece out on the website BigThink, below, in which he argues that "Write what you know" actually means, essentially, "Write what you feel." And it sounds really freeing. If you want to write a play about Venice, then write a play about Venice!

Having just completed a book about round-the-world voyages of scientists and explorers from the 1760s, and having traveled to only a tiny fraction of the locations portrayed in the book, I feel compelled to agree with him. 

Yet there's a crucial caveat that goes unuttered by Englander too. Consider "Shakespeare" vs. Ben Jonson. Now, for instance, Jonson sets Volpone in Venice, and Jonson never traveled there.

But as one Jonson scholar noted, "Romeo and Juliet is part of an Italian night [!]; Shylock would possibly be ill at ease away from the Rialto[!!]; but the scene of [Volpone] might as well have been laid in Madrid or Edinburgh for all the effect Venice has on the characters." 

In other words, Volpone is a great play -- just not a great Venetian play. 

"Shakespeare," on the other hand... well, the Jonson scholar above isn't just making idle chatter. SBAN and Richard Roe's Shakespeare's Guide to Italy are just two of a number of books over the years that concur with the Jonson scholar and make it clear how much personal experience of the author's own Italian travels went into R&J, Merchant of Venice, etc. 

So I certainly agree with Englander that writers should of course feel free to venture far and wide in the places and historical timeframes they write about. But there's still no faking first-hand knowledge. 

In that sense, pace Mr. Englander, "Write what you know" really requires no interpretation at all. Nothing more or less than... "Write what you know."

"Anonymous" with a byline - screenwriter John Orloff interview (part 3)

Below -- in honor of the 462nd birthday of Edward de Vere (Apr. 12) -- we continue with the third and final part of our exclusive, long-form interview with Anonymous screenwriter John Orloff. (Here are links to parts one and two of the interview.)

Anonymous is now available as a DVD or Blu-Ray video disc and as streaming online video -- through Amazon. 

This site can only urge once more... Please see it. In my experience, and that of many I've spoken to, it's so rich and densely packed that seeing it a second time is better than the first. (Review here.) 

Anonymous also changes the conversation in the authorship debate in some fundamental ways. Its box office performance was good but not great: Falling somewhere between the revenues generated by Kenneth Branagh's 1996 adaptation of Hamlet and the 2004 Merchant of Venice (starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons). Nevertheless, it lives on and will continue to do so for many years to come -- albeit in less culturally conspicuous ways than in first-run cineplexes around the world, where it has been over the past six months.

At issue in this part of the interview with Orloff was a separate conversation I had had with the emeritus Berkeley English professor Alan H. Nelson about Anonymous. Nelson -- like most orthodox Shakespeare scholars and fans -- took great exception to actor Rafe Spall's over-the-top portrayal of Will Shakspere of Stratford as a bit of an illiterate oaf. (Pictured here, left to right, Sebastian Armesto [Ben Jonson], screenwriter John Orloff, Rafe Spall [Shakespeare])

Here is where the conversation picks up:

MARK ANDERSON: Let's talk about the portrayal of Will Shakspere of Stratford by Rafe Spall. How did you imagine him? How did that role evolve?

JOHN ORLOFF: Rafe is amazing. I love his performance in the movie. [The film] started off with the conceit that Shakespeare is a movie star.  He's young. He's handsome. He's got an ego. He loves the ladies. He's ambitious. But in his heart, he really wants to act. That's what his art is, and that's what calls him. 

He was always in our script as illiterate. The scene when Ben Jonson demands that he writes something in front of the Mermaid wits, that was always in the script. 

MKA: But when you say illiterate...

JO: He couldn't write. 

MKA: So in every draft, he was able to read his parts. But he just couldn't write. 

JO: Correct. That was always in there. 

And then Rafe came and read. And he really just broadened the character. He was always a little funny in our script. But Rafe broadened it -- but at the same time, I find his Shakespeare a little dark and menacing, as the movie progresses. And I like that about him. He's got a lot to lose, by the middle of the movie. And goddam it, he's going to protect it. There's a dark side to our Shakespeare. 

I would ask [Spall] what he thinks about the [authorship] issue. I think Rafe was on our set a "closet Stratfordian." He would never really comment. Fair enough. But what he did say is, 'I think Shakespeare is the hero of this movie.' And I'd say, 'What do you mean?' And he said, 'If he didn't do this, none of it would have happened. Thank God he said Yes to Ben Jonson.' So we have these fabulous plays. That's how he thought of Shakespeare. 

I started to think of Shakespeare as a Greek tragedy. He was the fool. He has the fool's role in our Shakespearean tragedy. 

MKA: So Rafe thinks Shakespeare's the hero. You think he's the fool. 

JO: In the sense that he's our comedic relief throughout the film, which I think it needs, because it's such a serious, somber and at times melodramatic story. It needs that lighter touch that Rafe peppers throughout the film. 

And, listen, if you're going to go there. If you're going to say Shakespeare didn't make the plays, you don't want to make him a super-smart character, do you? Because you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot. You don't want to make an argument in the universe of the film that he's totally capable of making the plays. You want to make the argument of, 'No, he's some stupid actor.' You have that line when Oxford discovers that it's Shakespeare. The first thing out of his mouth is, 'An actor??!! An actor, for God's sake!' As if it's the worst thing imaginable. 

It was also poking in the eye of professors -- my own professors. I would also argue that the thing scholars know least about is Shakespeare and his personality. And so I think the version we have of Shakespeare is just as justifiable as Joseph Fiennes' Shakespeare. The professor [Alan] Nelson might have a big issue with Shakespeare in my movie. But that's because he's coming to it with his own emotional baggage of his impression of who Shakespeare was. I'm not responsible for that emotional baggage. I can't help him with that. 

The FAQ - from this Oxfordian's POV

I recently received a questionnaire from some high school students doing a project on Edward de Vere, Shakespeare and the authorship question. They asked some good questions that really got to the heart of the matter in the Shakespeare debate.

A number of readers have requested I post the (14) questions and my responses to them. 

What follows are one Oxfordian's opinions and perspectives. Others in the trenches of course have very different opinions and points of view. Vive la différence. 

With that caveat in mind, then...

1. How long have you researched Shakespeare and the authorship question?

I have been researching Shakespeare and the authorship mystery since 1993. I wrote a book, published in 2005, "Shakespeare" by Another Name, which was republished in ebook format last year. 

SBAN presents what I -- along with a small but growing minority of scholars, writers, theatrical professionals and Shakespeare buffs -- suspect is a very likely scenario, namely that the Elizabethan court dramatist Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, played a key role in the creation of the plays and poems published under the name "Shakespeare." I personally suspect de Vere was essentially the author himself. Others find a group collaboration scenario more probable. In any event, de Vere deserves much more attention by both scholars and people in the theater -- who of course bring these works to life. 

2. What ultimately made you believe Shakespeare was not the true author of all of his plays, sonnets, etc.?

Here's a great website that collects many of the so-called "anti-Stratfordian" arguments but does not advocate for any alternative "Shakespeare" candidate. Check out the YouTube video, in particular. A fine introduction to the case.