Local (Alternative) Shakespeare

The Shakespeare festival season is upon us. Always fun, and often revealing of who Shakespeare is in the popular imagination. The town I’ve lived in for two years is, by all measures, stuffed with Boston-area academics, many of them historians. So when I saw the notice for a 400th Anniversary celebration of the publication of the Sonnets this weekend, I was more than curious. Then I read the program.

The weekend-long series of talks and performances is being held at the local public library and the town’s Masonic Temple, and features spoken word performances by some British eurythmists. No, not followers of Annie Lenox; eurythmy is a performance style emphasizing “visible speech” and “visible singing." Next is a presentation is which the Earl of Oxford speaks with Lady Mary Wroth in 1604 about his life and fears that his family and writings will be forgotten, followed by another presentation on de Vere’s private life as Shakespeare. Another presentation will investigate (and dramatize) the “moving, tragic deaths of Ophelia, Cordelia, and Desdemona,” asking why they have to die? That night participants are invited to drink and present (in whichever order, I imagine) their favorite bits at an open stage.

Those conscious the next morning are in for some sobering esoterica: a one-man show titled “The True Story of King Henry IX, Last of the Tudors,” which “dramatizes the veritable tale of the sonnets” by following the Earl of Southampton’s political fortunes. Then a presentation on politics in Richard II led by an Oxfordian and an anthroposophist. Hmmm ... Last, a talk for our times on Shakespeare and monetary history, arguing that “this culture-forging canon of literary masterpieces sounds with a moral timbre that is not merely utilitarian, but allegorical: altogether a temporal tale of the gods. Is this the elixir it holds for this ‘post-modern” era, soon to metamorphose (dare I ‘prophesy’) into a post-commercial age?” A post-recession Shakespeare? Heady stuff.

A sedate, almost orthodox afternoon of Ralph Vaughan Williams settings and Wagnerian adaptations wraps it up.

Unfortunately, I seem to be traveling this weekend.