Shakespeare Magazine 9

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Interview: James Shapiro “James I didn’t really understand his English subjects, and couldn’t control Parliament as Elizabeth had” Shakespeare and his world – what he read, what was going on politically and economically at the time, how Shakespeare got to and from Stratford, even what the weather was like. I had to set a limit, of course, and the one I chose was chronological – stick to one year. I chose 1599 because that was the year in which the Globe Theatre was built. It took me 15 years to research and write that book, and by the end of that time I had a much clearer understanding of Shakespeare’s working conditions – and a finished manuscript that I could share with others equally curious about experiencing his world in this way.” In 1599 there was a strong sense of anxiety and paranoia about current events – the Spanish threat, unrest in Ireland, the Queen’s declining years – that fed into Shakespeare’s output during that time. In 1606, if anything, the situation in England is even worse? “In retrospect, the crises of 1599 quickly passed. Within five years the Irish rebels were crushed, a peace treaty was signed with Spain, and the aging and childless Queen was succeeded by James VI of Scotland, who had a male heir and a spare – Prince Henry and Prince Charles. The problems of 1606 would not be resolved quite so easily. The Union of Scotland and England, which James so avidly promoted, would not occur for another century. The aftermath of that failed terrorist attempt to topple the king and destroy the royal family and the nation’s political and religious elite – the Gunpowder Plot – would leave deep scars. The great hopes for the Jacobean regime were all but over by the end of this year.” You’ve been a prime mover in encouraging readers to think about the Jacobean Shakespeare who succeeded the Elizabethan one. For many of us it’s still a revelation that Shakespeare was not only alive during the Gunpowder Plot, but that in Macbeth he apparently penned a response to it… “I began as one of those scholars who always spoke of Shakespeare as an Elizabethan, never fully acknowledging that he spent the last decade of his writing life as a King’s Man, in a playing company patronized by James himself. And in my book on 1599 I only reinforced the image of Shakespeare as an Elizabethan. So I’ve spent much of the last decade trying to make amends, first researching and presenting a three-hour BBC documentary on the Jacobean Shakespeare, then writing a book about a remarkable Jacobean year.” It’s also staggering to think that Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra and King Lear could all have been written in the same year. Would this have been mind-blowing for Shakespeare’s colleagues and audiences? Or just business as usual in the rapid-turnover world of the Jacobean playhouse? “If I recall correctly, Thomas Dekker wrote or collaborated on ten or more plays in 1599. Writing three plays a year was not unusual for Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, nor had it been for Shakespeare from, say, 1595 to 1599… But the years between Hamlet and Lear were fallow ones for Shakespeare, in which he wrote one or at most two plays a year. He tended to write plays in inspired bunches (and would again in 1611- 12 when he wrote three romances – Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest). We’re just fortunate that he found his footing in 1606 and wrote three remarkable – and quite different – tragedies.” As an addendum to the Shakespeare Authorship Question you addressed in the excellent Contested Will, I’ve noticed a growing number of people who’ve chosen to believe Shakespeare was a Catholic or Catholic sympathiser. What do you think about this? While researching 1606, did you find anything that might support or disprove this notion? “Most of the evidentiary claims for the Catholic Shakespeare have been demolished of late. My own position is that we don’t and can’t know with any confidence what he professed. His religious beliefs remain hidden from us, and anyone 28 SHAKESPEARE magazine
Interview: James Shapiro who claims otherwise is reading the life through the work, or projecting onto Shakespeare things they want to believe about him.” How did your view of King James evolve while you were exploring 1606? Did he deserve the “wisest fool in Christendom” tag that history has given him? “That’s a great question. I remain of two minds about James. I have enormous respect for his intellect and he was surely the best writer ever to sit on the English throne. He also handled the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot quite well, refusing to listen to those who wanted to crack down on his Catholic subjects. But as smart as he was, James was also profligate, didn’t much enjoy the day-to-day business of ruling (preferring to let others handle that while he spent his days hunting), and wasn’t much of a husband or father. I could excuse all that if he had learned how to become a better king, but by the end of 1606 it was clear that he didn’t really understand his English subjects, didn’t know how to control Parliament as Elizabeth had, and had failed to fulfill the high hopes the English had in him.” You’ve spoken eloquently about how the word ‘equivocation’ changed its meaning for Shakespeare between Hamlet and Macbeth. Did you encounter any other words that underwent similar transformations in or around 1606? “It’s really unusual for the primary meaning of a word to undergo such a sea-change in so short a timespan as ‘equivocation’ did in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot. There are other words that underwent shifts in meaning at this time – ‘individual’ is one – but those alterations typically take decades. It’s fascinating tracking these changes in the Oxford English Dictionary as well as in new scholarly tools like the database Early English Books Online.” You’ve recently been involved in taking a production of Macbeth into prisons in New York. This made me think two things: how admirable to bring Shakespeare to some of the most disenfranchised people in the US – and weren’t you afraid a riot would break out? “Having spent a few afternoons in prisons and jails of late, I’m struck time and again by the graciousness that those who are incarcerated have extended to the actors. I’ve never felt threatened or scared. Jails, especially ones like Rikers Island in New York, can be awful places to be imprisoned. But the Public Theater’s Mobile Shakespeare Initiative, which visits these facilities, has never had anything but the warmest reception. Like all playgoers at good productions, inmates are quickly engrossed. And unlike performances in the West End or Broadway, in prisons the magic of Shakespeare is never disrupted by the ringing of cell phones.” Macbeth is the only one of Shakespeare’s works to contain either the word ‘rhinoceros’ or the word ‘rhubarb’. What’s the most absurdly interesting thing about Shakespeare or his works you’ve learned from immersing yourself in 1606? “Another great question. It would have to be a fresh discovery that changes our view of Shakespeare’s sociability. Until this past year, surviving anecdotes about Shakespeare often portray him as someone who shied away from company (at least according to reports by neighbors in Stratford-upon- Avon). But a researcher in Edinburgh has recently unearthed a document from the 1640s that describes how Shakespeare (along with Ben Jonson and fellow actors Richard Burbage and Laurence Fletcher “and the rest of their roistering associates in King James’s time”) had “cut” his name on the paneling of the famous Tabard Inn in Southwark. The discovery allows us to imagine a different sort of Shakespeare – a popular actor who enjoyed drinking with friends, one who was happy to join them in carving autographs on the wall of a favourite pub.” Get James Shapiro’s new book UK: published by Faber as 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear. USA: published by Simon & Schuster as The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. SHAKESPEARE magazine 29
Page 1 and 2: At last! A magazine with all the Wi
Page 3 and 4: Welcome Welcome to Issue 9 of Shak
Page 6 and 7: Coriolanus Due to massive popular d
Page 8 and 9: Coriolanus ast year in London, Donm
Page 10 and 11: Coriolanus Clockwise from left: Men
Page 12 and 13: Coriolanus the sparse set and costu
Page 14 and 15: Tom Hiddleston “British Shakespea
Page 16 and 17: Hamlet Benedict Cumberbatch’s Ham
Page 18 and 19: Hamlet “Designed by Es Devlin, th
Page 20 and 21: Macbeth 20 SHAKESPEARE magazine
Page 22 and 23: Macbeth eeing Macbeth on the big sc
Page 24 and 25: Macbeth “Lady Macbeth’s languid
Page 26 and 27: Interview: James Shapiro James Shap
Page 30 and 31: Bill “People will remember the na
Page 32 and 33: Bill Testing times for Bill Shakesp
Page 34 and 35: Bill Multi-talented cast members Si
Page 36 and 37: Bill “It’s a delightful comedy
Page 38 and 39: Interview: Paul Edmondson Shakespea
Page 40 and 41: Interview: Paul Edmondson about Sha
Page 42 and 43: Presenting Shakespeare “The Glory
Page 44 and 45: Presenting Shakespeare Julius Caesa
Page 47 and 48: Contributors Brooke Thomas is a fr

Shakespeare Magazine 9

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