Call it the Bard Bout of the Centuries: Shakespeare vs. Fakespeare.
Scholars have been duking it out over the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays for 400 years. And to date, Shakespeare’s ranking as the world’s greatest playwright remains undefeated. But a controversial new movie is dusting off the gloves like never before. And “Anonymous” goes for the knockout.
Not only does the film make the case that Shakespeare did not write one word that has been attributed to the world’s greatest playwright. He’s also portrayed as a fraud, a drunk, an extortionist, a blackmailer and, oh yeah — quite probably the murderer of his contemporary, Christopher Marlowe.
Director Roland Emmerich presents Shakespeare as the barely literate front for “the real” author of Shakespeare’s sonnets and 37 plays, the scandalous nobleman Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who couldn’t claim authorship in life because playwriting was considered an unseemly and seditious pursuit.
As an excoriation of Shakespeare, the movie pulls no punches. But Stratfordians, as Shakespeare’s defenders are known, are hardly throwing in the towel. Experts are calling “Anonymous” a heavyweight film that packs a lightweight punch.
“It’s kind of entertaining rubbish,” said Murray Ross, veteran artistic director of Colorado Springs’ TheatreWorks. “If I worked hard enough at it, I could probably make the case that Shakespeare was actually written by a cross-dressing Peruvian dwarf.”
To Ross, the issue of authorship is dead, even if the film does bring Shakespeare’s era to thrilling cinematic life. The far more enduring mystery to him isn’t who wrote Shakespeare’s plays. “It’s how did anyone write these plays?” he said. “They are just that good.”
Colorado Shakespeare Festival producing artistic director Philip Sneed has a vested interest in the issue of authorship — as would anyone with “Shakespeare” in his job title. In assessing the new film, Sneed barely got out the words, “I do think it’s possible that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the plays . . .” before Ross admonished him with, “You’re out of your mind!” to the laughter of an invited Denver Post panel that watched the film together last week, including Denver Center Theatre Company actor Drew Cortese, Shakespeare youth teacher Rebecca Mason Salomonsson and Colorado Shakes costumer Clare Henkel.
Sneed revels in the debate, and the interest it will surely spark in his favorite writer. That Shakespeare is finally getting the Oliver Stone treatment can only add to his coolness. “But in the end, I’m not sure that it matters who wrote the plays, any more than it mattered who Homer was,” Sneed said, and Cortese agrees.
“The important thing is that we still have the plays,” said Cortese. “The academics can debate who wrote what, when and why, but practitioners need to concern themselves most with telling 400-year-old stories and making them relevant for today’s audiences. That’s on us.”
But it matters to Ross, because if De Vere were empirically proven to be the author of Shakespeare’s plays, he said, it would force a reinterpretation of every line ever written, through De Vere’s rather sordid biography.
And it matters deeply to Salomonsson, who runs the Arvada Center’s teen Shakespeare summer camp. “I tell my students every day that, yes, it matters,” she said.
Shakespeare was the uneducated son of illiterate parents, and the film claims it would take a writer of “educated genius” to compose plays of such depth of intellect, comedy and philosophy. It’s a theory first posited decades ago by a schoolteacher named J. Thomas Looney, and it drives our schoolteacher named Salomonsson, well, loony.
“That implies that anyone who is not powerful enough and not wealthy enough can’t possibly achieve genius,” she said.
But neither Ross nor Sneed think this film is a game-changer or that it will legitimize De Vere’s backers, also known as “Oxfordians.”
“It’s possible that the movie plays so loose with the historical record that the Oxfordians might feel that it actually hurts their case,” said Sneed.
So much so, Ross added, that the film at times seems like a put-on. After all, the film suggests De Vere wrote “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as an amusement for Queen Elizabeth — his mother and the future mother of his own child — when he was 9!
Emmerich, best known for “Independence Day,” “2012” and “Godzilla,” has said he’s a filmmaker, not a scientist — and that his sole goal is to provide entertainment.
But “Anonymous” isn’t a yarn about fake aliens and monsters. He’s toying with sacrosanct English culture and history (as did Shakespeare, ironically). And Emmerich has powerful players with clout aboard. His cast includes knighted English actor Derek Jacobi, 2011 Tony winner Mark Rylance, and Vanessa Redgrave (as the incestuous queen).
In 2007, Jacobi and Rylance signed “The Declaration of Reasonable Doubt,” which says the question of authorship is uncertain enough that it should be regarded as a legitimate subject for academic research. Redgrave told the BBC last week there’s as much evidence that De Vere wrote the plays as did Shakespeare. Both she and Cortese doubt Shakespeare could have written all those plays while also working full time as an actor.
But in the film, authorship is but the subtext for the larger political thriller at play — who will be the next king? It contends that De Vere wrote “Richard III” as a hunchback as both a humiliation of his courtly nemesis, Robert Cecil, and as a means for inciting the masses to rise up against him.
And here’s where Sneed finds real value in the film: “Ten thousand men listening to one man’s words,” De Vere says in it. “That’s power.” In one scene, we see a crowd so riled up by Rylance as Henry V, they’re ready to take up arms against the French then and there.
“The takeaway from this movie is the power of words to change things,” Sneed said.
And as a film, it is undeniably fun — “pulpy,” Ross calls it. And the more she enjoyed it, the more trouble Salomonsson knew she was in for,
“I was watching it, thinking, ‘This is a really good movie.’ And now I am really scared because I think it is going to sway my impressionable young teenagers. I do hope they see it. I just don’t want them to take it as the truth.”
Complicating that issue is that the filmmakers are producing a package of lessons for American high schools, to further their theory as academic fact. Pop culture has a long record of supplanting the historical record dating back to, well, Shakespeare’s twiddling with English history.
“Isn’t Richard III forever sullied by Shakespeare’s depiction of him?” Sneed asked. And on that point, Ross said, Sneed is not out of his mind.
“People learn their English history from Shakespeare just as we learn our Civil War history from ‘Gone With the Wind,’ ” Ross said.
Even if it muddies the waters, Sneed encourages people to see the film. And if they do, Ross is sure of one thing:
“This movie will do nothing to derail the Shakespeare express,” he said. “This thing has been running strong for 400 years.”
The case against Shakespeare
*Not a single manuscript exists written in his own hand.He made no provisions in his will for the fate of his plays.
*He had no education, never owned a book and was the son of illiterate parents.
*Contemporaries Ben Jonson and Edmund Spencer were regarded enough to be buried in Westminster Abbey, but not Shakespeare.
The case for Edward de Vere (Oxford)
*Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was an educated nobleman and statesman who wrote the plays over a lifetime, but in anonymity. His goal was to incite political change. “Anonymous” posits that De Vere chose Jonson to be his frontman, but Shakespeare stole the opportunity at the conclusion of the first performance of “Henry V.”
The case against De vere
*Earl of Oxford was dead by the time Shakespeare wrote “Macbeth” and his other nine final plays. “Macbeth” was written during the political upheaval after King James I took the throne. In it, he makes deliberate reference to the Gunpowder Plot, which didn’t happen until after the Earl of Oxford died.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or email@example.com
Post’s John Moore among nation’s most influential theater critics
The Denver Post’s John Moore has been named one of the 12 most influential theater critics by American Theatre magazine, in part for the multimedia innovations he has implemented at denverpost.com/theater. Moore, who returned to The Denver Post in 1993 as an assistant sports editor, was cited for his ability to cover the news related to more than 100 active theater companies in Denver and to provide clear-eyed criticism of their productions. Read more about it: on our Running Lines Theater page and here’s the link to the complete American Theatre story.
This week’s theater openings
Opening Wednesday, Nov. 2, through Dec. 4: National touring production of “The Lion King,” at the Buell Theatre
Opening Thursday, Nov. 3, through Nov. 13: Red Rocks Community College’s “Pieces of Eight,” a collection of original short plays Lakewood
Opening Friday, Nov. 4, through Nov. 20: 73rd Avenue Theatre Company’s “Billy the Poet” Westminster
Opening Friday, Nov. 4, through Nov. 19: Longmont Theatre Company’s “Frost/Nixon”
Opening Friday, Nov. 4, through Nov. 6: National touring production of “South Pacific,” at the Lincoln Center Fort Collins
Opening Friday, Nov. 4, through Dec. 11: Germinal Stage-Denver’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”
Opening Friday, Nov. 4, through Nov. 19: Devil’s Thumb’s “Accomplice,” at the Dairy Center Boulder
Opening Friday, Nov. 4, through Nov. 13: Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre’s “Trinidad: Our Stories, Vol. One,” at Mount Carmel Community Center Trinidad
Opening Saturday, Nov. 5, through Dec. 10: Curious Theatre’s “Collapse”
This week’s theater closings
Today, Sunday, Oct. 30″ Denver Center Theatre Company’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” at the Stage Theatre
Today, Sunday, Oct. 30: Vintage Theatre’s “The Grapes of Wrath”
Today, Sunday, Oct. 30: Cherry Creek Theatre’s “The Unexpected Guest”
Today, Sunday, Oct. 30: Springs Ensemble Theatre’s “Coronado” Colorado Springs
Today, Sunday, Oct. 30: Heritage Square Music Hall’s “Who Done It at the High School Reunion?” Golden
Today, Sunday, Oct. 30: Arvada Festival Playhouse’s “Charles Dickens’ Ghost Stories”
Today, Sunday, Oct. 30: Front Range Theatre Company’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Castle Rock
Today, Sunday, Oct. 30: Backstage Theatre’s “Cannibal, the Musical” Breckenridge
Today, Sunday, Oct. 30: Thin Air Theatre Company’s “The Vampire of Cripple Creek” Cripple Creek
Monday, Oct. 31: Mercury Cafe Motley Players’ “Making a Killing”
Saturday, Nov. 5: Boulder’s Dinner Theatre’s “Slow Dance with a Hot Pickup”
Saturday, Nov. 5: Byers-Evans’ “An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe”
Saturday, Nov. 5: Shadow Theatre’s “The Final Mile to Providence,” at Su Teatro’s Denver Civic Theatre
Sunday, Nov. 6: Denver Center Attractions’ “Blind Date,” at the Galleria Theater
Sunday, Nov. 6: Creede Repertory Theatre’s “The Road to Mecca,” at the Arvada Center
Sunday, Nov. 6: TheatreWorks’ “Church” Colorado Springs
Sunday, Nov. 6: PHAMALy’s “Vox Phamilia: Quadrapalooza,” at the Avenue Theater (also plays Nov. 7-8 at Wit’s End, Westminster)
Sunday, Nov. 6: Nov. 6: Ignite Theatre’s “A Chorus Line, at the Aurora Fox
Sunday, Nov. 6: Evergreen Players’ “Brighton Beach Memoirs”
Sunday, Nov. 6: Union Colony’s “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” Greeley
Sunday, Nov. 6: Theatre Or’s “Apples from the Desert,” at the Mizel Center’s Pluss Theatre
Most recent theater openings
“Church” In this one-act “story,” bear witness as rising playwright Young Jean Lee transforms her life-long struggle with Christianity into an exuberant church service featuring one charismatic preacher and three members of his vestry. This experimental play, not a simple parody, is designed to test the expectations of religious and nonreligious alike. Through Nov. 6. The playwright leads a pre-show talk at 2:30 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 30). Presented by TheatreWorks in the Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theater, corner of Union and Austin Bluffs Parkway on the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs campus, 719-255-3232 or theatreworkscs.org
“Hello, Dolly!” This classic Broadway musical is a whirlwind race around New York at the turn of the 20th century, following the adventures of America’s most famous matchmaker. Songs include “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” and “Before the Parade Passes By.” Through Nov. 12. StageDoor Theatre, 27357 Conifer Road, Conifer, 303-886-2819, 800-838-3006 or stagedoortheatre.org
“Kama Sutra” Pamela and Tristan have been strolling down the path of monotonous monogamy for 25 years. One day, Pamela comes across the “Kama Sutra” in the library, sending her on a journey of sexual exploration. Through Dec. 18. Dangerous Theatre, 2620 W. 2nd Ave., 720-233-4703 or dangeroustheatre.com
“Proof” David Auburn’s Pulitzer-winner about a young woman who has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable mathematician father. After his death, she wonders how much of his genius — and madness — she has inherited. Through Nov. 12. Presented by the Coal Creek Community Theatre, Louisville Center for the Arts, 801 Grant St., Louisville, 303-665-0955 or ccctheater.org
“The Rocky Horror Show” Brad, Janet, alien transsexuals from the planet Transylvania and Dr. Frank N. Furter. Songs include “Time Warp.” Through Nov. 27. Presented by OpenStage at the Lincoln Center Mini-Theatre, 417 W. Magnolia St., Fort Collins, 970-221-6730 or openstage.com
“Vox PHAMILIA: Quadrapalooza” The handicapped theater PHAMALy’s fourth annual fall evening of sketch comedy. Their original material, written from personal experience and honed into an evening of short scenes by director and comedian Edith Weiss, skewers the absurdities of their everyday lives with brain injuries, diseases, mobility issues and more syndromes than you can count. Recommended for 16 and older. Through Nov. 8. Presented at the Avenue Theater, 417 E. 17th Ave. (through Nov. 6) and at the Wit’s End Comedy Club, 6080 W. 92nd Ave., Westminster (Nov. 7-8). 303-321-5925, (303-430-4242 for Wit’s End); phamaly.org and here’s our preview story
Complete theater listings
Go to our complete list of every currently running production in Colorado, including summaries, run dates, addresses, phones and links to every company’s home page. Or check out our listings by company or by opening date
The Running Lines blog
Catch up on John Moore’s roundup of the latest theater news: denverpost.com/runninglines