The Pittsburgh Tatler: When William Shakespeare died in 1616, he left behind dozens of plays and hundreds of poems, but little other than a last will and testament to shed light on his personal life. That document contains a much-debated line that has been inserted, almost as an afterthought, into a paragraph detailing his fairly generous bequest to his younger daughter Judith: “I give unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture.”
4 comments:
I find the concept of this play to be very interesting. Everyone knows about William Shakespeare and his contribution to society with his writings and plays, but I hadn't thought about his personal life very much. I did not actually even know that he had a wife until I read this article. I have since googled both of them and was very interested to learn that he was younger than her when they married by about 8 years. I also thought it was interesting that in his will, Shakespeare only included in a separate section, a bequest to his wife of furniture. The speculation of their marriage and what it was like is the foundation of this new play put on by The Quantum Theater. This play takes a kinder look at Anne Hathaway than previous playwrights who have speculated on the couples happiness and marriage. In this play, Hathaway describes her marriage and retells history with a modern perspective on it. It is a small production with only two actors, one of which is an 8th grader from Pittsburgh. I would like to see this play, if only to learn more about the mysterious Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare.
This is a very interesting concept. This may just be me, but not many know as much about Shakespeare as they know what he wrote. I never really considered what his life or family life was like as a playwright. I can't imagine how hard it was for his wife to let him go everywhere performing his shows as she stays home without the contact of phone or anything. This play seems to be in a genre(-ish) of plays where the focus is a strong woman where we learn more about her and understand their side to the stories we usually know. This can go hand in hand with what Hamilton did to Eliza Hamilton. I really like seeing shows like this as a decade ago none of these shows existed (or not many to my knowledge), but as they are growing more popular I support the idea to see other sides to the stories.
-Pablo Anton
I have always really loved Shakespeare, and have always found the bits and pieces that we know of his life very interesting. Yes, he was a revolutionary playwright who changed theatre for the rest of history, but he also had an incredibly dynamic and complex life which is evident through his work. We often hear that Shakespeare had love affairs with men and other “mysterious” women within his theatre. However, I find it incredibly interesting that this show chooses to focus on his wife, as we often hear so little about her experience and life because she was such an integral part of Shakespeare’s life. As described in the article, the show goes into the very unusual marriage and the set of agreements they had regarding their marriage. The show is described as honest and raw, and extremely unexpected. It is also very exciting to see that CMU’s C Todd Brown is working on lighting!
It is interesting to see theater makers reimagining the personal life of the theater master, Shakespeare, and bring it to the audience to open another round of conversation upon interpretation of history. Some might say Shakespeare's private life is a really old and cliche topic in any kind of art form or creative industry since we already have related famous works like Shakespeare in Love, which won Academy Award. However, I think it is the popularity the topic has always had highlights the significance and awareness of why we should and could go through historical materials repeatedly, in order to explore new approaches to humanity, come to realization of different sides of stories, and then share the findings via the most renowned cultural examples or cases to the world. In this age of advocating equality, it is empowering and useful if we can educate people how to dig out, interpret, and show respect to various aspects of their own stories and others'.
Post a Comment