February 26, 2025 • 43 mins
In Part 2 of the 1616 conversation with William Shakespeare, He’ll explain how and why he moved an entire building in the dead of night. He’ll share what he was doing during his “Lost Years.” And he’ll talk about Faries, Witches, and occasionally poaching a deer.
Start episode 2 to join the conversation.
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How is it that after all these years that William Shakespeare and his words still impact us. It would be a monumental task to channel all that brilliance allowing us to have this conversation with the Bard of Avon. Thank you, Austin Tichenor, for making this extraordinary experience possible.
Austin is the co-artistic director of the Reduced Shakespeare Company; a writing and acting coach at The Shakespeareance; the co-author of ten stage comedies, including William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged) and The Comedy of Hamlet! (a prequel); the co-creator of the illustrated children’s books Pop-Up Shakespeare and Daisy, the Littlest Zombie; a contributor to The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Shakespeare and Shakespearean Biofiction on the Contemporary Stage and Screen (from Arden Shakespeare); and the host of the world’s oldest and longest-running theater podcast, the Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast. He can be reached at theshakespeareance.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:28):
Welcome back to part twoof William Shakespeare.
In the last episode, we learnedwhy Anne Hathaway received the
second best bed in the will.
We also learned about Shakespeare'sstrategy for recycling plays from
history to stay out of troublewith the current Monarchs.
And we talked about the incredible amountof competition he faced to keep the
audience looking his direction instead ofat the bear fighting the dog next door.
(00:51):
In the next episode, he's going to tellus what happened during the Lost Years.
He's going to tell us about the Dark Lady.
And then he'll answer the question aboutwhether or not he was a spy for the Queen.
Let me ask you about yourfortune for a minute.
There's something that confuses meabout how good you are at making
money because, I mean, would yousay that you are savvy at business?
(01:14):
Oh, absolutely.
Very savvy.
Very savvy.
The art of making plays ismaking a living at making plays.
And that's what I was able to accomplish.
.And so that that raises the question.
, I've known a lot of people thatwere artistic in their lives.
And I think there's a history of peoplebeing good at something creative, but
then they're terrible at business.
(01:35):
They can make beautifulthings, paintings, and
none of it makes anymoney until they've died.
And yet it seems that youare really good at both.
You have a mind for business.
You had mentioned that you had 10 percentof the globe, or you'd invested in
the globe before that burned down and.
, I think you actually have a very nicehouse now, from my understanding.
(01:57):
I do.
I , I own the largest house in Stratford.
New place.
So this is the question thatraises for me , it seems like those
things don't go together very well.
They're there, it's just a differentway of thinking where one is
not usually good at the other.
And in our time, there'ssome controversy that.
There are a lot of people say thatyou did not write your own plays.
(02:17):
Somebody else wrote them
Who says that?
well, I mean, I don't know.
I didn't get all their names, but
send them to disabuse them of that myth.
so you absolutely wroteall of your own work.
That's outrageous.
Of course I wrote my own work.
Who else would do it?
Why would you write a playand then put my name on it?
(02:39):
Why would
That's what I always wondered.
Okay.
I could not create the great roles Icreated without such a great company
of players to bring them to life.
(03:03):
Richard Burbage, how could one createHamlet or indeed Romeo or King Lear
without that great lion of the stageRichard Burbage , to bring him to life?
was very fortunate to create theseworks, but , this, this aspect
of, of artists not being goodbusinessmen, I suppose that's true.
(03:23):
, but if so, in my case, again, I wasvery fortunate because I was a populist.
I wanted to write storiesthat attracted lots of people.
What is the point of writingof a play that only five
people want to come and see?
If I want to communicate To themasses, the, the larger, the
(03:43):
mass, , the better, correct.
most definitely.
Yeah.
? You had mentioned Richard Burbidge.
When you were writing a play, , wereyou fiddling with the words and
getting them the way you want?
Or are you thinking, oh, this iswhat Richard Burbidge would say.
Are you writing it for the actor?
I did both.
I, fiddled with, as you say, with thelanguage to make it poetic and real,
(04:08):
but I also knew the kinds of things myplayers could accomplish, for instance,
Burbage was a great titan, , a man ofgreat power, but I knew he always needed
a break because the amount of energythat he , expended performing these
(04:29):
roles always required that I , give hischaracters a long time off stage in act
four, , where he could Take a breath,grab some ale before his final scenes
Silence.
(04:51):
Silence.
Silence.
I could just say.
All right, Will, you do your
(05:13):
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
(05:36):
in that play, talk so much aboutthe way actors should deliver
the lines as they have been
So I'm going to go ahead and show you alittle bit of the process of creating a
transcript for the uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
(05:59):
played all my my clown roles but he soon
You Okay.
Okay.
(06:26):
thinking of the Feste in TwelfthNight or the Fool in King Lear.
, okay, so you obviously likedRichard Burbidge and, and this Kemp.
What would happen if somebody wason the stage and you, you know
exactly how you want them to saythe words and they are just doing a
terrible job delivering your words?
What would you do whileit's happening live?
Okay.
Well, what could I do?
(06:47):
I would have to, the play isthe thing, as I believe I wrote
once more than once probably.
, sometimes it happensbecause things happen.
It's not as if, We perform the sameplay every night for weeks at a time.
These players have multiple plays intheir head and are able to call upon
(07:08):
the right lines for the right playwith sometimes just a morning's notice
for a performance that afternoon.
As a former player myself,
(07:30):
if they were to change the linesrepeatedly, then we would have to
have a conversation and I suspect theywould not long be with our company.
then you'd have to let them know , whowas writing and who was acting.
Yes, exactly.
Yes, we, must learn our placeand our roles within the company.
That said, all the players werevery eager to speak my words.
(07:51):
That was never really this,this issue that you raised
was never a real one for me.
. Do people in your time, do theyspeak the way that you write?
Is that how everybody talks oris that, is that embellished?
Oh, it's absolutely embellished.
I said, I was a poet and, and a dramaticpoet in the sense that I use my poetry.
(08:19):
In the service of a dramaticnarrative or a comedic narrative?
, but this is not the way we speak.
, this is what we call heightened language.
, for the same reason one wouldn't , puta play between the pages of a book.
One wouldn't stand up on stage and say.
Just any sort of prosaic language.
If an audience is coming to thetheater, you must give them something
(08:41):
greater than what they can get outin the streets of London, you know?
So, so this is, no, thisis, do not be confused.
This is not what, the language of myplays is not the way we actually speak.
, this is spoken poetry , iswhat I'm hearing.
Well said.
Thank you.
Would you say that.
(09:02):
If, if somebody was to describe youand said, Will is a, is he a poet?
Is he a writer?
Is he a businessman?
What, what are you?
Oh, I, I would say poetfirst and foremost.
Yes.
, all the other things that you mentionedcome as a result of my skill as a poet.
Yeah.
(09:22):
. That makes a lot of sense.
So let's talk aboutthe globe for a minute.
So I've been to the globetheater, the rebuilt one.
Oh, they rebuilt it.
Bravo.
that's right.
In your time, it doesn't existanymore because it burned
down a couple of years ago.
Yes.
They've rebuilt it again.
I'm so happy.
Delighted to hear it.
They just keep building it over and over.
No matter how many times it burnsdown, they're not gonna let that go.
(09:44):
Not because of you.
down again?
I don't think so.
I mean, maybe.
But I'm not, I know when Iwas there, it wasn't on fire.
I know that.
very
But my, my question about theglobe is, is that you moved
it at one point, didn't you?
Didn't you like just take the boards down?
I mean, what does that look like?
When I read that, I'm thinking, Idon't even understand how that happens.
(10:06):
We didn't move, we didn't move the globe.
What we did was we were performingin a playhouse called The Theatre.
It was on the north side of the Thames, it sat on Land the Burbidges leased
Puritan named Giles Allen, and they weretrying to renew the lease, but Allen
(10:29):
insisted that he would only renew thelease if they stopped performing plays.
Well, obviously thatwas never going to work.
So, one Christmas Eve, when Giles Allenwas out of London for the holiday, in
observation of the holiday, he was inhis, at his country estate, we stole
(10:51):
into the theater and took it apart.
the verbiages did not own theland, but they owned the building.
So we
(11:16):
Where we rebuilt the theaterplayhouse, and that's the
one that we named The Globe.
Much better name from the theater
Yeah,
to the globe.
ha, yes, , we agree.
So then what caused it to burn down?
An accident, , I still don'tknow precisely who to blame.
(11:37):
But, , , I wrote a play
Okay.
Henry VIII.
Which is In retrospect, perhaps not aplay I should have written, because it
was skating rather close to thin ice.
Henry VIII, of course, was the father ofQueen Elizabeth, who had recently died.
, it was one of the last plays I
(12:14):
of the, of the globe on fire.
And it was, it was well on its way toburning the roof of the theater before
anyone noticed that it was happening.
Why nobody noticed it washappening is still something
I was never , able to solve.
But yes, it was, it was a performance ofHenry VIII that brought down the globe.
(12:34):
, and that is just one of many reasonswhy I regret writing that play.
So now we've got tying bears to stakes.
We've got.
People staring at naked people.
And the list goes on and on andall the things that we can do.
And now we're shooting cannons indoors,but still no women on the stage.
(12:55):
the Globe was an outdoor theater so weweren't firing off a cannon indoors.
So, indeed, it was a signal to allof London that a play was on board at
the Globe at that particular moment.
So, yes, but I take your point.
There were no women on stage.
, it's not something I was ever in favor of.
There are many, many great womenof my association in London, many
(13:21):
of whom convincingly play women.
Were there any women writers in your time?
Oh, of course.
Yes, there were, there was Amelia Bassano.
She was a great poet,also a wealthy widow.
She was another noble lady who wasable to create her art The need
(13:42):
to worry about making a living.
She was a great poet.
And I, will say in all confidence,a rather close, intimate of mine.
Ah, I wonder if you hadstarted out a little wealthier.
With a father that didn't drink as muchand a whole bunch of money, if you would
have had that fire in your belly, so tospeak, to go and do all the work that you
(14:05):
did, I mean, are you just a writer and youhave to write or did you need to do it?
And that's what caused it.
That is a fantastic question.
I don't think I would havebeen as good of a writer.
I might have had the fire, but Idon't think I would have had the
knowledge or the awareness of allthe different classes of society.
(14:25):
if I'm able to accurately judge my ownwork, I think one of the strengths of
my place is that I was able to createcharacters from all levels of society
from royalty to the nobility, to , theworking classes, to the mechanicals
to tavern owners, brothel workers.
(14:48):
I was able to write about them all.
So everyone in England was ableto see themselves in my plays.
Let's go back did you haveyour daughters before or after
who was, who was born first?
Susanna was born first, right?
Susanna followed, followed by the twins.
And in a medical miracle, Susannawas born less than nine months
(15:13):
after Anne and I were married.
That is a miracle.
You know, that sort of thingseems to happen frequently.
So.
happens in your day,
It, it definitely does.
There's a lot of people that getmarried and the timing of that nine
months seems to to fall very well.
So, with by the way, what happened?
(15:35):
What would've happened if you would'vehad a child or she would've been pregnant?
Before you were married, whichwe of course know didn't happen.
Well, well, of course , itwould've brought great shame
upon both of our families, theArdents and the Shakespeares,
and that, that would never do.
Plus I loved Anne.
, the fact of her being with childmerely sped up the inevitable.
(15:57):
. So then after Susanna is born, thenyou have your twins, Hamnet and Judith.
And then in our time, there'sa period after that, they call
it Shakespeare's lost years
Hmm
1585 and 1592.
And then after that, it just appears thatyou just come out with all this work.
ha,
What was happening during that time?
(16:17):
I have to say, , I'm relieved to know thatsome of my life is shrouded in mystery.
, the fact that you know the contentsof my will is disconcerting.
To be honest.
So I'm glad to know this.
I was doing what any young man does.
I was scrambling to find away to support my family.
(16:39):
I did some teachingthroughout the country.
I toured as a young actor.
It's how I first discovered the glory ofplayers and play acting, touring actors
from London , would travel the countrysideand perform for us in Stratford.
And because my father was a bailiffof Stratford, a high ranking official,
(17:02):
I was able to sit in on not just the
Okay.
but some of the rehearsals as a boy.
So, and I was captivated.
By all of this.
So I traveled as a younger manlooking to support my family.
I toured as a traveling player.
I was a boy who played some of the women.
(17:25):
I did some teaching indifferent rural communities.
I learned all about how.
Plays are made and how the business oftheater operates the how we get paid
where we stay and perform in the differenttowns that we come upon how the props
(17:46):
and costumes are built and maintained.
I think it's important for.
Anyone involved in this businessto understand how it works on a
fundamental level, not just on theartistic side, but on the business side.
So during these lost years you'respeaking of, I'm learning how to
become , the man of parts that I became.
(18:10):
, and that's why people wouldn't knowabout it, because there's nothing
exciting about learning that baseof knowledge that you're going to
be using for the rest of your life.
Indeed, I didn't go off to Cambridgeor Oxford to learn what they wanted.
Me to learn.
I traveled the countryside,learning what I wanted to learn.
I read once , that you might havebeen a soldier during that time,
(18:31):
which, could that have happened?
It did happen for a veryshort time, a very short time.
Both the army and me were ableto , figure out quite quickly that I
am not , meant to be a man of arms.
You came to an agreementon that very quickly, huh?
We did indeed.
, to use another expression that I'm notsure you're aware of play to my strengths.
(18:54):
Is this another of your phrases?
It could well be.
Okay.
Nobody knows.
Nobody knows.
And you talk about these wordsthat I supposedly invented.
I'm not sure I inventedany of these words.
I used words that were common.
of them were just common usage.
It's just that I might have beenthe first one to write them down.
(19:16):
, I'm very great.
I'm not sure I'm as great as all that.
I mean, there are, I think of thesewords, you know, and in the Taming of
the Shrew, there was break the ice.
I mean, this is somethingthat's used all the time.
And so maybe you were the firstone to write, wear your heart
on your sleeve in Othello.
Wild goose chase in Romeo and Juliet.
I mean, these are thingsthat are all said today.
(19:38):
Well, I'm glad to know that.
, I managed to live on.
you know, it's funny that, thatwe're having this conversation.
Well, it's a, it's miraculous that we'rehaving this conversation, but , I wrote
in many of my sonnets about power ofwords, how the words will outlive us.
(19:58):
And it, it seems that I was right.
. , speaking of the sonnets , Thisis something I don't know a lot
about and, but I do know that inthe sonnets that there is some
the doomsday book.
Don't sell yourself short, sir.There is much you don't know about.
you're, you're exactly right.
You're exactly right.
(20:19):
, there is a reference you make tothe dark lady and the fair youth.
What is the dark lady?
I just want to, as soon as I sawthat, I wanted to know who this was.
So
Well, I, I made mention of Emilia Bassanoearlier and I spoke of our intimacy.
She was very, very important to me,Emilia, but I dared not put her name down.
(20:42):
. So I refer to her as the DarkLady, which in fact she was.
She was darkly complected.
And, I was so fond of the image, Iconfess, I used the phrase the Dark
Lady to refer to more than one person.
Person as a, sort of a metaphoror stand in, if you will.
what about the fair youth?
(21:03):
Okay.
We have Q and A. I'll be back in a minute.
All right.
and sometimes by older nobility whowanted me to praise their son and
(21:28):
encourage him to get married and havechildren , and prolong the family name.
I confess I became with some ofthese young men as uh, their lady
friends and . was able to express inmy writing some feelings that I might
(21:50):
not necessarily act upon in my life.
Did you have romantic relationshipswith men in your time?
I did, and I'm only saying that because Iknow nobody from my own time is listening,
I did, it was a sort of a hard thingto, pardon the pun, it was a difficult
(22:11):
thing to avoid and there was never,thankfully, never the worry of a pregnancy
Going to result from an assignation withsome of the young men of my acquaintance.
. Well, that actually makes sense too.
, as they say, , what happens in thetheater stays in the theater, right?
Ha!
Do they say that?
(22:32):
It's, it's well said.
And I, and I totally agree.
Okay.
So what you, you, this is somethingthat come up a couple of times too.
And we talked a little bit aboutElizabeth not having an heir and
and we talked about King Lear
Hmm.
trying to pass his his kingdom on to hisdaughters and that not going very well.
(22:52):
Well, you, you're unfortunately,your heir has passed.
Young Hamnet died when he was young,and I'm guessing that you probably
have some strong feelings about that.
, how are you dealing with that?
What does that look like in your life?
Well, , it was unfortunate and , I haveregrets that I was not able to be there.
He was taken away so quickly.
I was not able to get up to Stratford tosay goodbye to him before we lost him.
(23:16):
I do have regrets about that.
, I tried to memorialize him.
I guess in many plays I was going tosay Hamlet, but I, I hope I memorialized
him , in all my young men characterstrying to do right by his father.
that said, , there's a reason I wrote KingLear as having only daughters and it's
(23:39):
not just because the legend of Lear , andthe pre existing versions of the King
Lear story were what remained to me.
And , when I wrote those plays ofregret, they were very much about
being away from them as much as I was,
So these feelings of not having an errorare not as strong as the feelings of
(24:03):
you being away from your family as muchbecause you were in the theater business.
Is that what you're saying?
I guess , I guess to answer yourquestion, this very conversation
is proof that it's true.
My heirs are my plays, and I'm lessconcerned about continuing the Shakespeare
(24:25):
name through a line of descendantslike Banquo's descendants, who became,
ultimately became the King of England,more impressed and delighted through
this conversation to know that myplays have survived down to your time.
(24:45):
. I wonder In your time, since youdon't have a direct air to pass your
property to these, these things thatobviously don't end up mattering at
the end, are you able to pass thesethrough your wife and your daughter?
I mean, I know she gets the best bed.
We've well established that,but what about the other stuff?
What about the rest of the house?
What about money?
(25:05):
Can you pass that to your daughters?
majority of my wealth goes to Susanna,because she's married to Dr. John Hall.
They will assume ownership of NewPlace, and, I have provided for
my wife, Anne, , to live with them,to live by their graciousness.
(25:26):
I've tried to take care of allof them insofar as I'm able.
. Okay.
I want to ask you something else andI want to ask you about King James,
but before we do that, coming back tothis fact that there were no women on
stage, I'm really confused about thatbecause you're almost your entire life
was ruled by monarch who was a female.
(25:49):
Like you got a queen on the throne.
Why is she not demanding thatwomen have right on stage?
Well, , that's a most excellent question.
And I wish she werearound we could ask her.
It could well be she wanted to be seenas the only powerful woman in her day.
And did not want other women.
(26:09):
On stage to seem as powerful.
It perhaps it diminished her power tosee other actual women on the stage.
, that could well be, , there couldwell have been a feeling that.
Women are just not able to asconvincingly play women as boys were,
(26:30):
which doesn't make any sense to me.
I am surrounded by strong,able women in my life.
You asked about my business sensepart of that is yes, I'm, fairly
and opportunistic, but I was alsovery lucky in that and Was also a
very knowledgeable, smart, toughbusinesswoman who ran our household.
(26:55):
Well, I was in London.
I did not need to worry about howthings were going in Stratford because
I knew that Anne was in charge there.
I didn't know that and played a role inrunning , your empire, your business.
Oh, absolutely she did.
, speaking of ale, , we made ale in ourhouse and Anne supervised all of that.
(27:18):
She supervised the grain.
. And in fact, I sort of cornered themarket on grain at one point in my time,
because it was such a valuable commodity.
I , was not.
Ashamed of doing what Ineeded to do in business.
in fact, I sued some people.
I was the subject of lawsuits.
(27:38):
It was it was a tough world,the world , of business equally
as tough as making plays.
when we were talking about Elizabeth,Queen Elizabeth, was she a paranoid queen?
I think she was rightly concerned aboutthreats to herself and her throne.
Silence.
(27:59):
Silence.
So, I had read once that you might havebeen a spy for her, is that correct?
A spy for Mary Stewart?
Perish the
No, no, no, a spy for Queen Elizabeth.
Oh, good.
Good lord, you you startled me.
(28:21):
I I, How to put it, did some lightspying, but like my time in the
military, it was determined by oneand all that I was not fit for it.
It was a job better left to my colleagueand brief rival Christopher Marlowe.
Kit Marlowe,
(28:42):
Tell me who he was.
he was a great, he was oneof the giants of our time.
He was a great literary man.
He was a great playwright, a great poet.
Oxford educated at Cambridge.
And he always liked to flaunt hiseducation in all of his plays.
His plays are filled withallusions to the classics.
(29:02):
it made many of us go, kid, we get it.
You're an educated man.
Relax.
Just tell us a story, would you?
He was killed in a brawlin a tavern in Deptford.
And the official story thatwent out was that he was killed
over a reckoning of the bill.
I suspect he was a spy, and thathis personal behavior was becoming
(29:29):
an embarrassment to the Queen.
And, that it was, it was decidedthat he should meet a fatal accident.
That's my guess as towhat happened to Kit.
Maybe you got out of thespy business in time.
Oh, I, yes.
I . I am a much more cautious andconservative writer and man than Kit was.
(29:53):
So when we look at your plays, we'vegot the older shows that you've written.
, from the Kings and theQueens that we've discussed.
And then of course, you know, we've gotRomeo and Juliet, which we talked about
a little bit that, that very sad story.
And then out of the blue, it appearscomes a Midsummer Night's Dream.
You've got all these mysticalcreatures and, and, I mean,
(30:16):
where does that come from?
, the playhouse was a jealous,demanding mistress, and needed to
be fed constantly with new material.
I'm Glad that you know ofMidsummer Night's Dream.
It's one of the few of my playsthat was created completely
(30:36):
extempore of my own wits.
I made up the plot.
I made up the characters.
I did incorporate the well knownlove story of Pyramus and Thisbe,
but only to make sport of Actorsand players and performers.
It was great fun.
There's nothing more fun to watch myplayers making fun of themselves under my
(31:02):
tutelage, saying my words and it's, it'swell known that many players are asses.
So why not turn one ofthem into an actual ass?
Who, was the ass in that?
Was that Puck?
No, no, no, Puck was the fairy, thefairy that turned Bottom into an ass.
That's right.
Who was the ass?
(31:22):
I can't remember who the ass was.
Bottom.
The, the character's name wasBottom, and he's turned into an ass.
It's a delightful play on words.
So when you, when you, when youtalk about Puck the fairy there
weren't, there weren't witchesin a Midsummer Night's Dream.
Like there were in I thinkthere were in the Tempest.
Is that right?
. There are witches in Macbeth.
(31:44):
There is
Yes.
Ariel is, is, is also a spiritwhose mother was a witch.
And there are members of the fairykingdom in Midsummer Night's Dream
who are just as real as witches.
In fact, I, I say this.
The horrible, tempestuous weatherwe sometimes is a direct result
(32:05):
of arguing and fighting amongstthe squabbling gods and fairies.
So the Titania and Oberon, , thequeen and king of the fairies
their great tempestuous romanceresults in the great and tempestuous
weather we sometimes experience.
Are there fairies and witchesfor real in your time?
(32:28):
course there are, are there not in yours?
Well, we don't know.
I and I, I guess I was wonderinghow real they were to you.
I don't, I don't know ifI've ever seen a witch.
Well, , they were very real to us.
Very real to us.
I, I mean, how to explain some of thegreat wonders of the age that , we
cannot explain in any other way,except that it must have been a
(32:49):
witch or it must have been a fairy.
There are, there are no other explanationexists in my time, but more importantly.
than that, is that witches and fairies,ghosts, other half human creatures like
Caliban from The Tempest, these are allgreat theatrical devices, ways in which we
(33:12):
can explore what it means to be human bylooking at characters that are not human.
The human conditionfascinates you, doesn't it?
It's all we have.
What about King James?
Is King James fascinated by witches?
He wrote a book about witches, King James.
Yes, he was definitely fascinated.
(33:32):
isn't he responsible for alsotranslating the King James Bible?
he did.
He did.
In many ways, he was as much of a patronof the written word as Queen Elizabeth
was a patron of the spoken word.
Yes, his translation of the Bible intoEnglish was a monumental achievement.
And that's the real purpose ofgreat published works like folios.
(33:55):
To immortalize the Lord's word withinthe covers of a book, not the, the
mere scribblings of a mere word, right?
Like myself,
That seems, for him to writea book on witches and him to
commission the Bible translated,are there witches in the Bible?
I confess, I know not.
(34:15):
I know that there are many fantasticalelements in the Bible, that One can't
explain, except through the word of God,
So tell me what happens next in your life.
The theater has burned down recently.
Are you gonna write some more plays?
, you're in Stratford now, aren't you?
I am.
Yes.
(34:36):
So what does the restof your life look like?
, certainly you have many, many years left.
What, what do you plan to do with them?
. Well, the theater is a young man's game.
And I confess that the burningdown of the globe rather took
the wind out of my sails.
It was one of the reasons Iwanted to return to Stratford.
I'm not quite sure I had the energyfor a regular life in the theater
(35:00):
as much as I did when I was young,as I said, I'm an old man now of 51.
and I'll be 52 tomorrow.
It's time to spend that time at homewith my wife, who I've neglected
for many years and deserves better.
I will occasionally collaborate.
I have, I have dabbled in plays.
(35:21):
I mean, The Tempest was the play thatI, the last play that I wrote By myself.
But I, I collaborated.
That's another reason why Ididn't care for Henry VIII.
That was a collaboration.
But I also wrote the great play Cardinio,which was a lovely collaboration, sort of
loosely inspired by Miguel de CervantesSpanish story of, of Don Quixote.
(35:46):
Plus I collaborated on a play calledthe two noble kinsmen, which feels like
a perfect bookend to my first play,which was the two gentlemen of Verona.
So to begin a career writing abouttwo men and to finish a career writing
about two different men, I admirethe, perfect structure of that.
(36:08):
Well, I am so thankful for all of thistime that you have given me and I,
I've enjoyed this conversation so much.
as have I master Antonio.
This has been wonderful I guessthere's just a few last questions
and I think these are just storiesthat none of these are probably true,
but I'm curious if any of these are.
(36:28):
So if you could correct me onthese or confirm them, whichever
it is, was there a time where yougot in trouble for poaching deer
Oh!
Ha ha!
That, that was a misunderstYou know about that?
Good he
or it gets around, you startpoaching somebody's deer.
I mean, that stuffpasses through the ages.
(36:49):
It was a it was a misunderstandingand a youthful indiscretion.
But yes, it happened.
, did you have a matchmaking business?
. Matchmaking business.
No, I, that, that, that seems like arumor that has been started in your day.
At the Globe Theater, I thinkthis is one of the first
(37:09):
times that this ever happened.
Was there a trap door in the floor?
Of course there was.
Yes.
The trap door is, is the wayby which much magic is created.
We were able to havecharacters disappear suddenly.
We were able to create deviceswhereby a table filled with
food could magically appear.
(37:29):
As if by coming up throughthe trap in the floor.
That was one of the many technical marvelsthat the playhouses were capable of.
We had traps.
In the floor, we had the heavens abovea roof over a part of the stage where
we would bring sailors up from the dockswho were good with pulleys and ropes
(37:51):
and they were able to fly in characters,magical creatures like the goddess
As You Like It was able to fly in.
From, from the heavens,literally the heavens.
So that's what we called it, the heavens.
It was, it was the way by whichwe accomplished much stage magic.
was that something that youcreated or was that commonplace?
(38:13):
I
yard, for instance, inthe countryside somewhere.
But when we had the full resources ofnot just the globe, but then Blackfriars
(38:38):
theater, which was an indoor theater lit.
By candlelight.
This was a marvelous invention.
This is where Macbethwas first staged indoors.
So we were able to create anatmosphere of, on the ease
and superstition and darkness.
A world in which which isCould naturally thrive.
(39:00):
And Another aspect of the businessside of what we do, we were able to
find investors who would give us moneyto build the black friars theater.
In fact, we used some of the sameinvestors that we're investing
in the colonies in the Americas.
Is it.
Is that where you're from, by the way?
(39:21):
am yes from the Americas.
Are you from the Virginia Colony?
well, Virginia Colony got bigger.
That
it?
Good heavens.
Well,
yes.
of those same, investors funded the,the voyages to the new world, as
we called it built our theaters.
fact, I was inspired to write TheTempest because one of those ships that
(39:44):
was sailing to the New World, that wasfunded by the men I knew who funded
Blackfriars Theatre, one of their shipssunk in a huge tempest, which gave me the
inspiration for the beginning of my play.
What would happen if you were inthe middle of a play at the Globe
Theatre and it was, because it's openair, I think, and it starts raining?
(40:08):
Many, many people would get wet.
But the play, but the show continues.
Oh, yes, the play would go on, of course.
The
I mean, after all, you're not going to,
I not made this clear?
The play's the thing!
and it's not like you're goingto give them their money back.
God, no.
That would be insane.
(40:29):
I think that's a perfectplace to end this.
If you.
We're going to say anything else toall these aspiring artists, all these
writers that would be listening to thisand, , they would maybe want to emulate
what you're doing or, do somethingfantastic that people would remember.
Is there anything thatyou'd like to say to them?
Well, I'd be flattered if anyyoung artists were to emulate me.
(40:50):
God knows I emulated the artistsahead of me, I stole their plot lines.
I stole actual lines of dialogue.
I stole some characters, but importantly,I transformed them and made them my own.
I think this is how young artists findtheir own voice is by copying the voices.
(41:14):
of the artists they admire.
So, I would be enormously flattered tobe an inspiration to but I would give
them the same advice that Polonius givesto Laertes, which is, to thine own self.
Will, thank you again for all of yourtime and all of your great work, and
(41:35):
I wish you a long, long, happy lifewith your wife and your daughters.
Master Antonio, I receive that withgratitude, and to quote myself,
I can no other answer make, butthanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.
While preparing for this conversation, Iran into several articles that suggested
that Shakespeare didn't love his wife.
(41:57):
I don't think that's true.
I think that he loved his wife dearly,but I also think that he loved the other
women that he was with, and the men.
I think that he loved his actors.
I know that he loved his words,and I think that he loved more than
anything seeing those words passover the lips of a skilled actor.
in exactly the way that he had writtenthem, in the hopes that they would
(42:17):
move the audience to feel something.
I think he loved giving peoplean escape from the death and the
political strife that was everywhere.
I think Shakespeare lovedeverything, mostly life.
Once his young son Hamlet died, it appearsthat Shakespeare may have done some of
his best work, knowing that his heir wouldno longer be able to pass on his name.
(42:40):
Is it possible that he worked harder byrebuilding the Globe Theatre, writing
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth?
Did these plays that centered aroundloss and grief come from Shakespeare's
need to leave a legacy, even if itcould only be a literary legacy?
Whatever caused all of thismagnificent work to reach the stage,
(43:03):
Shakespeare knew when to play it.
Fast and loose.
He knew to never wear out his welcomeand he knew that the play was the thing.
Thanks for listening, and don'tforget that when you tell a
friend about the Calling Historypodcast, A UFO Lands takes one.
Look around and decides, eh, not today.
I'm Tony Dean, and untilnext time, I'm history.
Welcome back to part twoof William Shakespeare.
In the last episode, we learnedwhy Anne Hathaway received the
second best bed in the will.
We also learned about Shakespeare'sstrategy for recycling plays from
history to stay out of troublewith the current Monarchs.
And we talked about the incredible amountof competition he faced to keep the
audience looking his direction instead ofat the bear fighting the dog next door.
(00:51):
In the next episode, he's going to tellus what happened during the Lost Years.
He's going to tell us about the Dark Lady.
And then he'll answer the question aboutwhether or not he was a spy for the Queen.
Let me ask you about yourfortune for a minute.
There's something that confuses meabout how good you are at making
money because, I mean, would yousay that you are savvy at business?
(01:14):
Oh, absolutely.
Very savvy.
Very savvy.
The art of making plays ismaking a living at making plays.
And that's what I was able to accomplish.
.And so that that raises the question.
, I've known a lot of people thatwere artistic in their lives.
And I think there's a history of peoplebeing good at something creative, but
then they're terrible at business.
(01:35):
They can make beautifulthings, paintings, and
none of it makes anymoney until they've died.
And yet it seems that youare really good at both.
You have a mind for business.
You had mentioned that you had 10 percentof the globe, or you'd invested in
the globe before that burned down and.
, I think you actually have a very nicehouse now, from my understanding.
(01:57):
I do.
I , I own the largest house in Stratford.
New place.
So this is the question thatraises for me , it seems like those
things don't go together very well.
They're there, it's just a differentway of thinking where one is
not usually good at the other.
And in our time, there'ssome controversy that.
There are a lot of people say thatyou did not write your own plays.
(02:17):
Somebody else wrote them
Who says that?
well, I mean, I don't know.
I didn't get all their names, but
send them to disabuse them of that myth.
so you absolutely wroteall of your own work.
That's outrageous.
Of course I wrote my own work.
Who else would do it?
Why would you write a playand then put my name on it?
(02:39):
Why would
That's what I always wondered.
Okay.
I could not create the great roles Icreated without such a great company
of players to bring them to life.
(03:03):
Richard Burbage, how could one createHamlet or indeed Romeo or King Lear
without that great lion of the stageRichard Burbage , to bring him to life?
was very fortunate to create theseworks, but , this, this aspect
of, of artists not being goodbusinessmen, I suppose that's true.
(03:23):
, but if so, in my case, again, I wasvery fortunate because I was a populist.
I wanted to write storiesthat attracted lots of people.
What is the point of writingof a play that only five
people want to come and see?
If I want to communicate To themasses, the, the larger, the
(03:43):
mass, , the better, correct.
most definitely.
Yeah.
? You had mentioned Richard Burbidge.
When you were writing a play, , wereyou fiddling with the words and
getting them the way you want?
Or are you thinking, oh, this iswhat Richard Burbidge would say.
Are you writing it for the actor?
I did both.
I, fiddled with, as you say, with thelanguage to make it poetic and real,
(04:08):
but I also knew the kinds of things myplayers could accomplish, for instance,
Burbage was a great titan, , a man ofgreat power, but I knew he always needed
a break because the amount of energythat he , expended performing these
(04:29):
roles always required that I , give hischaracters a long time off stage in act
four, , where he could Take a breath,grab some ale before his final scenes
Silence.
(04:51):
Silence.
Silence.
I could just say.
All right, Will, you do your
(05:13):
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
(05:36):
in that play, talk so much aboutthe way actors should deliver
the lines as they have been
So I'm going to go ahead and show you alittle bit of the process of creating a
transcript for the uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
(05:59):
played all my my clown roles but he soon
You Okay.
Okay.
(06:26):
thinking of the Feste in TwelfthNight or the Fool in King Lear.
, okay, so you obviously likedRichard Burbidge and, and this Kemp.
What would happen if somebody wason the stage and you, you know
exactly how you want them to saythe words and they are just doing a
terrible job delivering your words?
What would you do whileit's happening live?
Okay.
Well, what could I do?
(06:47):
I would have to, the play isthe thing, as I believe I wrote
once more than once probably.
, sometimes it happensbecause things happen.
It's not as if, We perform the sameplay every night for weeks at a time.
These players have multiple plays intheir head and are able to call upon
(07:08):
the right lines for the right playwith sometimes just a morning's notice
for a performance that afternoon.
As a former player myself,
(07:30):
if they were to change the linesrepeatedly, then we would have to
have a conversation and I suspect theywould not long be with our company.
then you'd have to let them know , whowas writing and who was acting.
Yes, exactly.
Yes, we, must learn our placeand our roles within the company.
That said, all the players werevery eager to speak my words.
(07:51):
That was never really this,this issue that you raised
was never a real one for me.
. Do people in your time, do theyspeak the way that you write?
Is that how everybody talks oris that, is that embellished?
Oh, it's absolutely embellished.
I said, I was a poet and, and a dramaticpoet in the sense that I use my poetry.
(08:19):
In the service of a dramaticnarrative or a comedic narrative?
, but this is not the way we speak.
, this is what we call heightened language.
, for the same reason one wouldn't , puta play between the pages of a book.
One wouldn't stand up on stage and say.
Just any sort of prosaic language.
If an audience is coming to thetheater, you must give them something
(08:41):
greater than what they can get outin the streets of London, you know?
So, so this is, no, thisis, do not be confused.
This is not what, the language of myplays is not the way we actually speak.
, this is spoken poetry , iswhat I'm hearing.
Well said.
Thank you.
Would you say that.
(09:02):
If, if somebody was to describe youand said, Will is a, is he a poet?
Is he a writer?
Is he a businessman?
What, what are you?
Oh, I, I would say poetfirst and foremost.
Yes.
, all the other things that you mentionedcome as a result of my skill as a poet.
Yeah.
(09:22):
. That makes a lot of sense.
So let's talk aboutthe globe for a minute.
So I've been to the globetheater, the rebuilt one.
Oh, they rebuilt it.
Bravo.
that's right.
In your time, it doesn't existanymore because it burned
down a couple of years ago.
Yes.
They've rebuilt it again.
I'm so happy.
Delighted to hear it.
They just keep building it over and over.
No matter how many times it burnsdown, they're not gonna let that go.
(09:44):
Not because of you.
down again?
I don't think so.
I mean, maybe.
But I'm not, I know when Iwas there, it wasn't on fire.
I know that.
very
But my, my question about theglobe is, is that you moved
it at one point, didn't you?
Didn't you like just take the boards down?
I mean, what does that look like?
When I read that, I'm thinking, Idon't even understand how that happens.
(10:06):
We didn't move, we didn't move the globe.
What we did was we were performingin a playhouse called The Theatre.
It was on the north side of the Thames, it sat on Land the Burbidges leased
Puritan named Giles Allen, and they weretrying to renew the lease, but Allen
(10:29):
insisted that he would only renew thelease if they stopped performing plays.
Well, obviously thatwas never going to work.
So, one Christmas Eve, when Giles Allenwas out of London for the holiday, in
observation of the holiday, he was inhis, at his country estate, we stole
(10:51):
into the theater and took it apart.
the verbiages did not own theland, but they owned the building.
So we
(11:16):
Where we rebuilt the theaterplayhouse, and that's the
one that we named The Globe.
Much better name from the theater
Yeah,
to the globe.
ha, yes, , we agree.
So then what caused it to burn down?
An accident, , I still don'tknow precisely who to blame.
(11:37):
But, , , I wrote a play
Okay.
Henry VIII.
Which is In retrospect, perhaps not aplay I should have written, because it
was skating rather close to thin ice.
Henry VIII, of course, was the father ofQueen Elizabeth, who had recently died.
, it was one of the last plays I
(12:14):
of the, of the globe on fire.
And it was, it was well on its way toburning the roof of the theater before
anyone noticed that it was happening.
Why nobody noticed it washappening is still something
I was never , able to solve.
But yes, it was, it was a performance ofHenry VIII that brought down the globe.
(12:34):
, and that is just one of many reasonswhy I regret writing that play.
So now we've got tying bears to stakes.
We've got.
People staring at naked people.
And the list goes on and on andall the things that we can do.
And now we're shooting cannons indoors,but still no women on the stage.
(12:55):
the Globe was an outdoor theater so weweren't firing off a cannon indoors.
So, indeed, it was a signal to allof London that a play was on board at
the Globe at that particular moment.
So, yes, but I take your point.
There were no women on stage.
, it's not something I was ever in favor of.
There are many, many great womenof my association in London, many
(13:21):
of whom convincingly play women.
Were there any women writers in your time?
Oh, of course.
Yes, there were, there was Amelia Bassano.
She was a great poet,also a wealthy widow.
She was another noble lady who wasable to create her art The need
(13:42):
to worry about making a living.
She was a great poet.
And I, will say in all confidence,a rather close, intimate of mine.
Ah, I wonder if you hadstarted out a little wealthier.
With a father that didn't drink as muchand a whole bunch of money, if you would
have had that fire in your belly, so tospeak, to go and do all the work that you
(14:05):
did, I mean, are you just a writer and youhave to write or did you need to do it?
And that's what caused it.
That is a fantastic question.
I don't think I would havebeen as good of a writer.
I might have had the fire, but Idon't think I would have had the
knowledge or the awareness of allthe different classes of society.
(14:25):
if I'm able to accurately judge my ownwork, I think one of the strengths of
my place is that I was able to createcharacters from all levels of society
from royalty to the nobility, to , theworking classes, to the mechanicals
to tavern owners, brothel workers.
(14:48):
I was able to write about them all.
So everyone in England was ableto see themselves in my plays.
Let's go back did you haveyour daughters before or after
who was, who was born first?
Susanna was born first, right?
Susanna followed, followed by the twins.
And in a medical miracle, Susannawas born less than nine months
(15:13):
after Anne and I were married.
That is a miracle.
You know, that sort of thingseems to happen frequently.
So.
happens in your day,
It, it definitely does.
There's a lot of people that getmarried and the timing of that nine
months seems to to fall very well.
So, with by the way, what happened?
(15:35):
What would've happened if you would'vehad a child or she would've been pregnant?
Before you were married, whichwe of course know didn't happen.
Well, well, of course , itwould've brought great shame
upon both of our families, theArdents and the Shakespeares,
and that, that would never do.
Plus I loved Anne.
, the fact of her being with childmerely sped up the inevitable.
(15:57):
. So then after Susanna is born, thenyou have your twins, Hamnet and Judith.
And then in our time, there'sa period after that, they call
it Shakespeare's lost years
Hmm
1585 and 1592.
And then after that, it just appears thatyou just come out with all this work.
ha,
What was happening during that time?
(16:17):
I have to say, , I'm relieved to know thatsome of my life is shrouded in mystery.
, the fact that you know the contentsof my will is disconcerting.
To be honest.
So I'm glad to know this.
I was doing what any young man does.
I was scrambling to find away to support my family.
(16:39):
I did some teachingthroughout the country.
I toured as a young actor.
It's how I first discovered the glory ofplayers and play acting, touring actors
from London , would travel the countrysideand perform for us in Stratford.
And because my father was a bailiffof Stratford, a high ranking official,
(17:02):
I was able to sit in on not just the
Okay.
but some of the rehearsals as a boy.
So, and I was captivated.
By all of this.
So I traveled as a younger manlooking to support my family.
I toured as a traveling player.
I was a boy who played some of the women.
(17:25):
I did some teaching indifferent rural communities.
I learned all about how.
Plays are made and how the business oftheater operates the how we get paid
where we stay and perform in the differenttowns that we come upon how the props
(17:46):
and costumes are built and maintained.
I think it's important for.
Anyone involved in this businessto understand how it works on a
fundamental level, not just on theartistic side, but on the business side.
So during these lost years you'respeaking of, I'm learning how to
become , the man of parts that I became.
(18:10):
, and that's why people wouldn't knowabout it, because there's nothing
exciting about learning that baseof knowledge that you're going to
be using for the rest of your life.
Indeed, I didn't go off to Cambridgeor Oxford to learn what they wanted.
Me to learn.
I traveled the countryside,learning what I wanted to learn.
I read once , that you might havebeen a soldier during that time,
(18:31):
which, could that have happened?
It did happen for a veryshort time, a very short time.
Both the army and me were ableto , figure out quite quickly that I
am not , meant to be a man of arms.
You came to an agreementon that very quickly, huh?
We did indeed.
, to use another expression that I'm notsure you're aware of play to my strengths.
(18:54):
Is this another of your phrases?
It could well be.
Okay.
Nobody knows.
Nobody knows.
And you talk about these wordsthat I supposedly invented.
I'm not sure I inventedany of these words.
I used words that were common.
of them were just common usage.
It's just that I might have beenthe first one to write them down.
(19:16):
, I'm very great.
I'm not sure I'm as great as all that.
I mean, there are, I think of thesewords, you know, and in the Taming of
the Shrew, there was break the ice.
I mean, this is somethingthat's used all the time.
And so maybe you were the firstone to write, wear your heart
on your sleeve in Othello.
Wild goose chase in Romeo and Juliet.
I mean, these are thingsthat are all said today.
(19:38):
Well, I'm glad to know that.
, I managed to live on.
you know, it's funny that, thatwe're having this conversation.
Well, it's a, it's miraculous that we'rehaving this conversation, but , I wrote
in many of my sonnets about power ofwords, how the words will outlive us.
(19:58):
And it, it seems that I was right.
. , speaking of the sonnets , Thisis something I don't know a lot
about and, but I do know that inthe sonnets that there is some
the doomsday book.
Don't sell yourself short, sir.There is much you don't know about.
you're, you're exactly right.
You're exactly right.
(20:19):
, there is a reference you make tothe dark lady and the fair youth.
What is the dark lady?
I just want to, as soon as I sawthat, I wanted to know who this was.
So
Well, I, I made mention of Emilia Bassanoearlier and I spoke of our intimacy.
She was very, very important to me,Emilia, but I dared not put her name down.
(20:42):
. So I refer to her as the DarkLady, which in fact she was.
She was darkly complected.
And, I was so fond of the image, Iconfess, I used the phrase the Dark
Lady to refer to more than one person.
Person as a, sort of a metaphoror stand in, if you will.
what about the fair youth?
(21:03):
Okay.
We have Q and A. I'll be back in a minute.
All right.
and sometimes by older nobility whowanted me to praise their son and
(21:28):
encourage him to get married and havechildren , and prolong the family name.
I confess I became with some ofthese young men as uh, their lady
friends and . was able to express inmy writing some feelings that I might
(21:50):
not necessarily act upon in my life.
Did you have romantic relationshipswith men in your time?
I did, and I'm only saying that because Iknow nobody from my own time is listening,
I did, it was a sort of a hard thingto, pardon the pun, it was a difficult
(22:11):
thing to avoid and there was never,thankfully, never the worry of a pregnancy
Going to result from an assignation withsome of the young men of my acquaintance.
. Well, that actually makes sense too.
, as they say, , what happens in thetheater stays in the theater, right?
Ha!
Do they say that?
(22:32):
It's, it's well said.
And I, and I totally agree.
Okay.
So what you, you, this is somethingthat come up a couple of times too.
And we talked a little bit aboutElizabeth not having an heir and
and we talked about King Lear
Hmm.
trying to pass his his kingdom on to hisdaughters and that not going very well.
(22:52):
Well, you, you're unfortunately,your heir has passed.
Young Hamnet died when he was young,and I'm guessing that you probably
have some strong feelings about that.
, how are you dealing with that?
What does that look like in your life?
Well, , it was unfortunate and , I haveregrets that I was not able to be there.
He was taken away so quickly.
I was not able to get up to Stratford tosay goodbye to him before we lost him.
(23:16):
I do have regrets about that.
, I tried to memorialize him.
I guess in many plays I was going tosay Hamlet, but I, I hope I memorialized
him , in all my young men characterstrying to do right by his father.
that said, , there's a reason I wrote KingLear as having only daughters and it's
(23:39):
not just because the legend of Lear , andthe pre existing versions of the King
Lear story were what remained to me.
And , when I wrote those plays ofregret, they were very much about
being away from them as much as I was,
So these feelings of not having an errorare not as strong as the feelings of
(24:03):
you being away from your family as muchbecause you were in the theater business.
Is that what you're saying?
I guess , I guess to answer yourquestion, this very conversation
is proof that it's true.
My heirs are my plays, and I'm lessconcerned about continuing the Shakespeare
(24:25):
name through a line of descendantslike Banquo's descendants, who became,
ultimately became the King of England,more impressed and delighted through
this conversation to know that myplays have survived down to your time.
(24:45):
. I wonder In your time, since youdon't have a direct air to pass your
property to these, these things thatobviously don't end up mattering at
the end, are you able to pass thesethrough your wife and your daughter?
I mean, I know she gets the best bed.
We've well established that,but what about the other stuff?
What about the rest of the house?
What about money?
(25:05):
Can you pass that to your daughters?
majority of my wealth goes to Susanna,because she's married to Dr. John Hall.
They will assume ownership of NewPlace, and, I have provided for
my wife, Anne, , to live with them,to live by their graciousness.
(25:26):
I've tried to take care of allof them insofar as I'm able.
. Okay.
I want to ask you something else andI want to ask you about King James,
but before we do that, coming back tothis fact that there were no women on
stage, I'm really confused about thatbecause you're almost your entire life
was ruled by monarch who was a female.
(25:49):
Like you got a queen on the throne.
Why is she not demanding thatwomen have right on stage?
Well, , that's a most excellent question.
And I wish she werearound we could ask her.
It could well be she wanted to be seenas the only powerful woman in her day.
And did not want other women.
(26:09):
On stage to seem as powerful.
It perhaps it diminished her power tosee other actual women on the stage.
, that could well be, , there couldwell have been a feeling that.
Women are just not able to asconvincingly play women as boys were,
(26:30):
which doesn't make any sense to me.
I am surrounded by strong,able women in my life.
You asked about my business sensepart of that is yes, I'm, fairly
and opportunistic, but I was alsovery lucky in that and Was also a
very knowledgeable, smart, toughbusinesswoman who ran our household.
(26:55):
Well, I was in London.
I did not need to worry about howthings were going in Stratford because
I knew that Anne was in charge there.
I didn't know that and played a role inrunning , your empire, your business.
Oh, absolutely she did.
, speaking of ale, , we made ale in ourhouse and Anne supervised all of that.
(27:18):
She supervised the grain.
. And in fact, I sort of cornered themarket on grain at one point in my time,
because it was such a valuable commodity.
I , was not.
Ashamed of doing what Ineeded to do in business.
in fact, I sued some people.
I was the subject of lawsuits.
(27:38):
It was it was a tough world,the world , of business equally
as tough as making plays.
when we were talking about Elizabeth,Queen Elizabeth, was she a paranoid queen?
I think she was rightly concerned aboutthreats to herself and her throne.
Silence.
(27:59):
Silence.
So, I had read once that you might havebeen a spy for her, is that correct?
A spy for Mary Stewart?
Perish the
No, no, no, a spy for Queen Elizabeth.
Oh, good.
Good lord, you you startled me.
(28:21):
I I, How to put it, did some lightspying, but like my time in the
military, it was determined by oneand all that I was not fit for it.
It was a job better left to my colleagueand brief rival Christopher Marlowe.
Kit Marlowe,
(28:42):
Tell me who he was.
he was a great, he was oneof the giants of our time.
He was a great literary man.
He was a great playwright, a great poet.
Oxford educated at Cambridge.
And he always liked to flaunt hiseducation in all of his plays.
His plays are filled withallusions to the classics.
(29:02):
it made many of us go, kid, we get it.
You're an educated man.
Relax.
Just tell us a story, would you?
He was killed in a brawlin a tavern in Deptford.
And the official story thatwent out was that he was killed
over a reckoning of the bill.
I suspect he was a spy, and thathis personal behavior was becoming
(29:29):
an embarrassment to the Queen.
And, that it was, it was decidedthat he should meet a fatal accident.
That's my guess as towhat happened to Kit.
Maybe you got out of thespy business in time.
Oh, I, yes.
I . I am a much more cautious andconservative writer and man than Kit was.
(29:53):
So when we look at your plays, we'vegot the older shows that you've written.
, from the Kings and theQueens that we've discussed.
And then of course, you know, we've gotRomeo and Juliet, which we talked about
a little bit that, that very sad story.
And then out of the blue, it appearscomes a Midsummer Night's Dream.
You've got all these mysticalcreatures and, and, I mean,
(30:16):
where does that come from?
, the playhouse was a jealous,demanding mistress, and needed to
be fed constantly with new material.
I'm Glad that you know ofMidsummer Night's Dream.
It's one of the few of my playsthat was created completely
(30:36):
extempore of my own wits.
I made up the plot.
I made up the characters.
I did incorporate the well knownlove story of Pyramus and Thisbe,
but only to make sport of Actorsand players and performers.
It was great fun.
There's nothing more fun to watch myplayers making fun of themselves under my
(31:02):
tutelage, saying my words and it's, it'swell known that many players are asses.
So why not turn one ofthem into an actual ass?
Who, was the ass in that?
Was that Puck?
No, no, no, Puck was the fairy, thefairy that turned Bottom into an ass.
That's right.
Who was the ass?
(31:22):
I can't remember who the ass was.
Bottom.
The, the character's name wasBottom, and he's turned into an ass.
It's a delightful play on words.
So when you, when you, when youtalk about Puck the fairy there
weren't, there weren't witchesin a Midsummer Night's Dream.
Like there were in I thinkthere were in the Tempest.
Is that right?
. There are witches in Macbeth.
(31:44):
There is
Yes.
Ariel is, is, is also a spiritwhose mother was a witch.
And there are members of the fairykingdom in Midsummer Night's Dream
who are just as real as witches.
In fact, I, I say this.
The horrible, tempestuous weatherwe sometimes is a direct result
(32:05):
of arguing and fighting amongstthe squabbling gods and fairies.
So the Titania and Oberon, , thequeen and king of the fairies
their great tempestuous romanceresults in the great and tempestuous
weather we sometimes experience.
Are there fairies and witchesfor real in your time?
(32:28):
course there are, are there not in yours?
Well, we don't know.
I and I, I guess I was wonderinghow real they were to you.
I don't, I don't know ifI've ever seen a witch.
Well, , they were very real to us.
Very real to us.
I, I mean, how to explain some of thegreat wonders of the age that , we
cannot explain in any other way,except that it must have been a
(32:49):
witch or it must have been a fairy.
There are, there are no other explanationexists in my time, but more importantly.
than that, is that witches and fairies,ghosts, other half human creatures like
Caliban from The Tempest, these are allgreat theatrical devices, ways in which we
(33:12):
can explore what it means to be human bylooking at characters that are not human.
The human conditionfascinates you, doesn't it?
It's all we have.
What about King James?
Is King James fascinated by witches?
He wrote a book about witches, King James.
Yes, he was definitely fascinated.
(33:32):
isn't he responsible for alsotranslating the King James Bible?
he did.
He did.
In many ways, he was as much of a patronof the written word as Queen Elizabeth
was a patron of the spoken word.
Yes, his translation of the Bible intoEnglish was a monumental achievement.
And that's the real purpose ofgreat published works like folios.
(33:55):
To immortalize the Lord's word withinthe covers of a book, not the, the
mere scribblings of a mere word, right?
Like myself,
That seems, for him to writea book on witches and him to
commission the Bible translated,are there witches in the Bible?
I confess, I know not.
(34:15):
I know that there are many fantasticalelements in the Bible, that One can't
explain, except through the word of God,
So tell me what happens next in your life.
The theater has burned down recently.
Are you gonna write some more plays?
, you're in Stratford now, aren't you?
I am.
Yes.
(34:36):
So what does the restof your life look like?
, certainly you have many, many years left.
What, what do you plan to do with them?
. Well, the theater is a young man's game.
And I confess that the burningdown of the globe rather took
the wind out of my sails.
It was one of the reasons Iwanted to return to Stratford.
I'm not quite sure I had the energyfor a regular life in the theater
(35:00):
as much as I did when I was young,as I said, I'm an old man now of 51.
and I'll be 52 tomorrow.
It's time to spend that time at homewith my wife, who I've neglected
for many years and deserves better.
I will occasionally collaborate.
I have, I have dabbled in plays.
(35:21):
I mean, The Tempest was the play thatI, the last play that I wrote By myself.
But I, I collaborated.
That's another reason why Ididn't care for Henry VIII.
That was a collaboration.
But I also wrote the great play Cardinio,which was a lovely collaboration, sort of
loosely inspired by Miguel de CervantesSpanish story of, of Don Quixote.
(35:46):
Plus I collaborated on a play calledthe two noble kinsmen, which feels like
a perfect bookend to my first play,which was the two gentlemen of Verona.
So to begin a career writing abouttwo men and to finish a career writing
about two different men, I admirethe, perfect structure of that.
(36:08):
Well, I am so thankful for all of thistime that you have given me and I,
I've enjoyed this conversation so much.
as have I master Antonio.
This has been wonderful I guessthere's just a few last questions
and I think these are just storiesthat none of these are probably true,
but I'm curious if any of these are.
(36:28):
So if you could correct me onthese or confirm them, whichever
it is, was there a time where yougot in trouble for poaching deer
Oh!
Ha ha!
That, that was a misunderstYou know about that?
Good he
or it gets around, you startpoaching somebody's deer.
I mean, that stuffpasses through the ages.
(36:49):
It was a it was a misunderstandingand a youthful indiscretion.
But yes, it happened.
, did you have a matchmaking business?
. Matchmaking business.
No, I, that, that, that seems like arumor that has been started in your day.
At the Globe Theater, I thinkthis is one of the first
(37:09):
times that this ever happened.
Was there a trap door in the floor?
Of course there was.
Yes.
The trap door is, is the wayby which much magic is created.
We were able to havecharacters disappear suddenly.
We were able to create deviceswhereby a table filled with
food could magically appear.
(37:29):
As if by coming up throughthe trap in the floor.
That was one of the many technical marvelsthat the playhouses were capable of.
We had traps.
In the floor, we had the heavens abovea roof over a part of the stage where
we would bring sailors up from the dockswho were good with pulleys and ropes
(37:51):
and they were able to fly in characters,magical creatures like the goddess
As You Like It was able to fly in.
From, from the heavens,literally the heavens.
So that's what we called it, the heavens.
It was, it was the way by whichwe accomplished much stage magic.
was that something that youcreated or was that commonplace?
(38:13):
I
yard, for instance, inthe countryside somewhere.
But when we had the full resources ofnot just the globe, but then Blackfriars
(38:38):
theater, which was an indoor theater lit.
By candlelight.
This was a marvelous invention.
This is where Macbethwas first staged indoors.
So we were able to create anatmosphere of, on the ease
and superstition and darkness.
A world in which which isCould naturally thrive.
(39:00):
And Another aspect of the businessside of what we do, we were able to
find investors who would give us moneyto build the black friars theater.
In fact, we used some of the sameinvestors that we're investing
in the colonies in the Americas.
Is it.
Is that where you're from, by the way?
(39:21):
am yes from the Americas.
Are you from the Virginia Colony?
well, Virginia Colony got bigger.
That
it?
Good heavens.
Well,
yes.
of those same, investors funded the,the voyages to the new world, as
we called it built our theaters.
fact, I was inspired to write TheTempest because one of those ships that
(39:44):
was sailing to the New World, that wasfunded by the men I knew who funded
Blackfriars Theatre, one of their shipssunk in a huge tempest, which gave me the
inspiration for the beginning of my play.
What would happen if you were inthe middle of a play at the Globe
Theatre and it was, because it's openair, I think, and it starts raining?
(40:08):
Many, many people would get wet.
But the play, but the show continues.
Oh, yes, the play would go on, of course.
The
I mean, after all, you're not going to,
I not made this clear?
The play's the thing!
and it's not like you're goingto give them their money back.
God, no.
That would be insane.
(40:29):
I think that's a perfectplace to end this.
If you.
We're going to say anything else toall these aspiring artists, all these
writers that would be listening to thisand, , they would maybe want to emulate
what you're doing or, do somethingfantastic that people would remember.
Is there anything thatyou'd like to say to them?
Well, I'd be flattered if anyyoung artists were to emulate me.
(40:50):
God knows I emulated the artistsahead of me, I stole their plot lines.
I stole actual lines of dialogue.
I stole some characters, but importantly,I transformed them and made them my own.
I think this is how young artists findtheir own voice is by copying the voices.
(41:14):
of the artists they admire.
So, I would be enormously flattered tobe an inspiration to but I would give
them the same advice that Polonius givesto Laertes, which is, to thine own self.
Will, thank you again for all of yourtime and all of your great work, and
(41:35):
I wish you a long, long, happy lifewith your wife and your daughters.
Master Antonio, I receive that withgratitude, and to quote myself,
I can no other answer make, butthanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.
While preparing for this conversation, Iran into several articles that suggested
that Shakespeare didn't love his wife.
(41:57):
I don't think that's true.
I think that he loved his wife dearly,but I also think that he loved the other
women that he was with, and the men.
I think that he loved his actors.
I know that he loved his words,and I think that he loved more than
anything seeing those words passover the lips of a skilled actor.
in exactly the way that he had writtenthem, in the hopes that they would
(42:17):
move the audience to feel something.
I think he loved giving peoplean escape from the death and the
political strife that was everywhere.
I think Shakespeare lovedeverything, mostly life.
Once his young son Hamlet died, it appearsthat Shakespeare may have done some of
his best work, knowing that his heir wouldno longer be able to pass on his name.
(42:40):
Is it possible that he worked harder byrebuilding the Globe Theatre, writing
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth?
Did these plays that centered aroundloss and grief come from Shakespeare's
need to leave a legacy, even if itcould only be a literary legacy?
Whatever caused all of thismagnificent work to reach the stage,
(43:03):
Shakespeare knew when to play it.
Fast and loose.
He knew to never wear out his welcomeand he knew that the play was the thing.
Thanks for listening, and don'tforget that when you tell a
friend about the Calling Historypodcast, A UFO Lands takes one.
Look around and decides, eh, not today.
I'm Tony Dean, and untilnext time, I'm history.
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