Jim Shaffer's List: Jim Shaffer English 9A

Was Shakspere Shakespeare?
 It is  remarkable that not one of England's poet-dramatists, at the death of the man born William Shakspere, wrote a single line lamenting his passing or praising his literary talents. It is strange that Shakespeare's very detailed will lists no books or manuscripts as part of his estate. Perhaps more disquieting still is the man's epitaph, apparently written by him, if we are to take its words literally. It reads (modern spelling):

What do we really know about William Shakspere? Where did he learn the French, Italian, Latin and Greek that provided the untranslated source material for the plays? At the village school--assuming his attendance--he would have learned only "...small Latin and less Greek." Shakespeare's plays represent the pinnacle of Renaissance art; the culmination of rhetoric, poetry, painting, and science. Never having become a member of Gray's Inn or attended Cambridge or Oxford, how did the man from Stratford gain the knowledge the plays reveal of the law and medicine? Never having been at sea, how did he gain the knowledge the plays reveal of navigation? Never having traveled there, how did he gain the first-hand experience of Renaissance Italy the plays so clearly reveal? Perhaps William Shakspere of Stratford-upon-Avon did not possess the learning these plays exhibit, but others of his time did . . . .

In 1997, director/adaptor/playwright Joe Calarco was invited by the Off-Off Broadway theatre company, the Expanded Arts Theatre, to direct Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with a cast of five male actors. His production opened that fall, with a cast of four (one of the actors dropped out while rehearsals were underway, and Calarco redistributed the roles rather than rehearse a replacement). By that time, the production had taken a form that deviated significantly from the play as written: it was no longer merely a production of Romeo and Juliet, but a theatre piece about four young men—students at a Catholic boarding school—improvising Romeo and Juliet in their dormitory room. Bolstered by stunning reviews, the production sold out its Off-Off Broadway run. It was optioned by commercial theatre producers, who transferred the production to an open-ended Off-Broadway run at the John Houseman Studio Theatre starting in January 1998, under the title "Shakespeare's R&J, adapted and directed by Joe Calarco," where it ran for over a year. The theatre piece was subsequently produced, under Calarco's direction, at the Folger Theatre, the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, the Theatre Royal Bath, and the Arts Theatre in the West End.