Shakespeare sketch

A few weeks ago the school put on a day-long Shakespeare Festival. Several weeks prior, I told my 7th period Literature class about the Shakespeare Authorship question and showed them Shakespeare By Another Name, the book written by friend and Northampton author Mark Anderson, whereupon the class came up with the idea of writing and performing a scripted debate about the Shakespeare Authorship Question, which the entire school watched at the conclusion of the day’s events. The following is a transcript for your reading pleasure:


The Shakespeare Authorship Question Debate Sketch

Written by: Tess Crocker, Erin Tridle, Meghan Alexander, Clotilde Joly, Andrew Schlater, Michael Hines, Jarod Grossman & Anthony Westcott


MODERATOR: Good afternoon and welcome to today’s debate. There has been a lot of discussion recently in literary circles concerning the proposition that the historical figure known as William Shakespeare was not in fact the writer of the plays and sonnets that make up the most famous canon in English literature, that the Bard is not the businessman and actor from Stratford on Avon who lived in the Elizabethan era but that this name was a pseudonym for the 17th earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. The author of Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, MacBeth, and others has historically been thought to be a William Shakespeare, born a middle class citizen of Stratford in England in 1564, who made his living as a businessman and actor in London until his death in 1616.

In addition to being an Elizabethan noble, De Vere was a writer whose few published works date to the 1570s and 1580s, ceasing at the very time that plays and verse written by a William Shakespeare began to be published. A group of scholars believe that he used this name to distance himself from the seedy world of the theatre, which at the time was associated with the lower classes of English society. Arguing for De Vere this afternoon are Professor of Literature E.T. and Dr. M.H. Opposing are Professor of Literature T.C. and Dr. J. G., recipient of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

After moderator’s introduction, E & M are seated on the left with T and J on the right. E and T both have scripts to refer to for their lines while J & M have notebooks and pens on the tables in front of them. J&M write notes as the other two begin their discussion. There is a pitcher of water with several cups on a stand in the middle of the two tables.


E: Let’s start with William Shaksper of Stratford on Avon. That is his name, by the way, Shaksper, not Shakespeare. It’s close but the two names are different.

T: It’s well-known that spellings were hardly standard in the Elizabethan era, when illiteracy was a fact of life for the majority of the citizens.

E: Speaking of illiteracy, so far as is known and can be proved, both of William Shaksper’s or, as you like it…. (M chuckles loudly, and J follows suit) both of William Shakespeare’s parents, his wife and his children were illiterate and there is no evidence to the contrary that he wasn’t as well.

T: There is evidence that he was an actor- certainly he had to be able to read lines from a script.

(During E’s speech here, J& M continue taking notes but as they write upon their notepads, they are not looking at what they are writing but looking insistently at each other, and write more ferociously as they go, stabbing the paper with their pens.)

E: Perhaps he was a bit player whose parts required very little reading. The truth is, we know very little about him in general, compared to other writers of the day. How do we explain the fact that there are handwritten manuscripts that survive from writers like Ben Jonson, John Donne, and Christopher Marlowe, but none, not a single play or poem written in Shakespeare’s own hand?

T: An incredible amount of written materials was lost in the great London fire of 1666. Since Shakespeare lived in London while he was an actor, who’s to say his handwritten manuscripts weren’t lost in the fire?

(First M, then J lower their glasses to peer at each other)

E: But it’s more than just his plays and poems. There is nothing that survives that is written in his hand, not a diary, not a letter, not a note, not even a grocery list.

(Now J chortles, followed by M., J points to his eyes a la Meet The Parents.)

T: Again, all of it could’ve been lost in that fire.

(During this speech, J& M mutter assorted MM-hmmms, uh-huhs while nodding animatedly, their attention focused on each other.)

E: Why then do we have so many surviving documents of Shakespeare’s business dealings? Do you believe a fire selectively destroyed his literary work, and spared his business papers?

T: Give me a break. Shakespeare’s business dealings happened in Stratford, not in London. It’s possible that his manuscripts perished in the London fire, while his business documents remained safe in Stratford.

(J&M look back down at their notebooks. M surreptitiously tears a small piece of paper from his, crumples it, and tosses it at J, quickly going back to his writing as soon as he throws it)

E: There is also the case of his will, which goes into exact detail, yet does not mention any manuscripts. Remember he died in 1616, several decades before the London fire of 1666. If he had written all these plays, why did he not bequeath them?

T: Perhaps he considered them the property of the troupes that performed them. After all, he was a middle class citizen who wrote to pay the bills. In 1616 there wasn’t as much respect accorded plays that there is now. They may not have had much monetary value as objects worth mentioning in a will.

E: Books had value then. Experts from the fields of science, medicine, law, history and literature agree that this writer was tremendously well-read. Given that there were no libraries in existence and a middle class citizen would not have access to collections belonging to nobles, how else would William Shakespeare read so much if he did not own the books himself? Not a single book is mentioned in his will. Other writers like John Donne, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe owned collections of books.

M: Good point, my esteemed colleague. It’s clear that some of us here are well-read while others might not be. I myself am a great admirer of Ben Jonson in particular.

J: Indeed, indeed, although I much prefer the works of uh, uh, Christopher Marshmallow.

T: Ummm, that’s Christopher Marlowe. Anyway, a playwright would need access to books, that’s true. It could be that someone who stood to profit from his playwriting granted him access to a library. He wouldn’t necessarily need to own any books.

(J stands up and walks over to the table and pours himself a glass of water)

E: We could sit here all day and speculate upon whether William Shakespeare wrote these plays but I have a candidate who easily fits the profile of a person who could’ve written these works: Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford.

T: Of course. It’s just not possible that a common middle class man could be a genius. It would have to be a member of the royalty.

(While E speaks, J walks behind M, dips his finger into his water glass, and flicks a drop on M, who only looks quizzically at J as J wanders back to his seat)

E: Well, why can’t a member of royalty be a genius? Besides, there is a good reason that De Vere hid his work under a pseudonym- he wrote material that criticized the nobility. It did not look good for a noble to be associated with the theater at that time, and he could’ve gotten in a lot of trouble for criticizing the royal court in his plays.

T: Criticizing the royal court would be even easier for a middle class citizen like Shakespeare to do.

(While E speaks, M stands and walks over to the pitcher of water. J gulps down what he has left and returns to the pitcher himself. The two glare at each other.)

E: But an earl would know the ins and outs of the court better. Also, if one looks at the plays closely, they’d recognize that someone like De Vere, who traveled extensively in Italy, where many plays are set, would learn a lot about that country. Look at Othello. Here is a play set in Venice in Italy, mentioning many details that only someone who had been there would know about. Is it just a coincidence that Othello is set in Venice and is about a man who finds out his wife is cheating on him when De Vere himself found out his wife was cheating on him while he was traveling in Venice? Shakespeare never traveled beyond Stratford and London and the towns that connected the two.

(J&M return to seats, and begin to make more emphatic assenting gestures towards their partners as they speak, nodding, pointing while the other shakes his head, rolls his eyes, etc.)

T: Who’s to say Shakespeare didn’t pick up all these details from a friend at the local tavern who had been to Venice and filled him in on those details?

E: There are many more coincidences between De Vere’s life and the plays. Every play is set in a royal court except for The Merry Wives of Windsor. It just so happens that De Vere spent his entire life among the royal circles except for when he suffered a prolonged illness, whereupon he took some time to convalesce in, you guessed it, the town of Windsor.

T: (Sarcastically) Please, do go on.

E: (Snottily) I will. Many famous characters in Shakespeare plays are reflected in people De Vere knew. His first marriage was a union of two individuals from two families with a history of disagreement, a la the Montagues & Capulets in Romeo & Juliet. De Vere borrowed a great deal of money from Jewish moneylenders in Venice and had trouble paying it back, a la The Merchant of Venice. De Vere had an outspoken, shrewish sister-in-law a la Kate in The Taming of The Shrew. And just as in King Lear, De Vere had three daughters and bequeathed them property before he died in 1604.

T: (assertively) Stop right there. How do you account for the fact that De Vere died in 1604 when plays continued to be written for five more years after that?

J: Yes, please enlighten us.

E (getting exasperated herself): A-ha. So now you want to play “the Elizabethan era was not well documented” card when it suits your purpose. Since when is the chronology of those plays set in stone?

M: Yes, how would you know- were you there?

J: (in sinister voice) Maybe I was.

T: (voice rises in pitch) What about The Tempest, which refers to an event from 1609, five years after De Vere died?

J: (takes a swig of water) A-ha! (accidentally sprays M)

(M runs around the back of the table to go flick J’s ear)

E: (voice grows louder) Speculation! Pure conjecture! There were plenty of other shipwrecks prior to that it could’ve been based on.

(M& J begin girlyslapping each other, then proceed to enter into a wrestling match throughout)

T: But we are talking about The Tempest, a specific storm and shipwreck dating to 1609!And voila, here we have a Shakespeare play from 1609 about an event in 1609, THE TEMPEST!

E: (with affected whiny voice) The Tempest, 1609! The Tempest, 1609! It’s like a broken record with you people! It’s the equivalent of Yankees fans with their 1918 chants. 1609, The Tempest! 1609, The Tempest!

T: Speaking of a tempest…

(E& T get up from their seats, yank J&M by the necks and stand them back up).

M: Well, then, shall we agree to disagree?

J (Shakes M’s hand): Indeed, my good man! (Takes E’s hand and bows to her) Enchante!

E: (Guardedly): My pleasure.

M: (Shakes T’s hand vigorously): Jolly good show!

T: Yes, it sure was.

MODERATOR: That’s all the time we have for now. Please join us next week when Professor M.A. will explain her theory that all of Mozart’s music was in fact composed by a race of super-intelligent vampire space monkeys. Thank you for joining us.