DOUBLE FALSEHOOD
DOUBLE FALSEHOOD
By William Shakespeare and John Fletcher
Directed by Phil Willmott
Designed by Javier De Frutos
Produced by Ellie Collyer-Bristow for MokitaGrit in association with The Steam Industry
The Union Theatre, Southwark
204 Union Street, London SE1 OLX
www.doublefalsehood.org
The issues surrounding the authorship of this play have been bubbling away for quite some time, since Double Falsehood was known in the 18th century to be a re-writing of the lost play Cardenio by Shakespeare and John Fletcher. The play is set in Andalucia and was originally a story told as part of Miguel Cervantes masterpiece Don Quixote. Double Falsehood was one of a number of collaborations which also included the Two Noble Kinsmen, a play which was not included in the first folio but which has come to be accepted as a work of the Shakespeare canon even though a great deal of it may be the work of Fletcher. The play was then re-written and re-presented as a lost Shakespeare work by the theatrical entrepreneur and Shakespeare scholar, Lewis Theobald, in 1727. Theobald was a great rival of Alexander Pope, his contemporary and England's greatest poet at the time. Theobald has come down to us as the chief dunce in Pope's scathing satire The Dunciad but Theobald was an important yet flawed figure. The underlying issue of authorship at work here is the division between concepts of writers and authors in Shakespeare's time which viewed literature as functional and/or entertainment, thus inherently collaborative and the myth of quasi-divine inspiration of often diseased genius loner writers purveyed by the Romantic era.
The Union Theatre is an intimate (meaning small) context to present this ‘new’ play by Shakespeare, new because it was recently included in Methuen’s Collected Works of the Bard, thus re-igniting the old controversy about its authorship which is also vigorously detailed, in fact exhaustively so, in the Methuen text. Later this year the RSC will shape a new piece, Cardenio, out of the surviving source material. The small ensemble cast delivered their lines passionately, enthusiastically during the several Acts and a number of underwritten scenes which contained no great poetry but lots of very competent stuff. There seemed to be a division between Leonora (Emily Plumtree) with a Home Counties accent and Violante (Jessie Lilley) with a Scouse - Liverpool - one, this was generally echoed through the rest of the play intimating the interesting regional or gender implications. Shakespeare himself originated in the Midlands and must have been regarded as a rural type, rustic or rude mechanical in London for some time after his arrival in the later part of the 16th century. Also he happened to have begun his career in rough, nasty Southwark where the Union theatre happens to be based then moved to Silver Street near Enfield as he began to make his packet – career began to gather momentum.
There are a number of reasons why Double Falsehood has been rejected by the makers of the Shakespearian canon. Generally speaking it is slight, a curiosity rather than a major play for there are several indications of authorial naivety. For instance, some scenes end with a character who then opens the next one, a kind of primitive jumpcut. The bumptious, predictable, patriotic dirge of the opening prelude is another sign, the general lacklustre dramatic verse another. If Shakespeare's early plays read like cut up poems that he had rejected as poems then learned to re-use as supposed dramas, he is fully in charge of the dramatic craft by the time of his Macbeth, for instance. This play is not another Macbeth. However, Double Falsehood has the power to inspire us, to make us love Shakespeare again. This production in this intimate venue with a cast that is clearly both passionate and charged by what it is doing, is really a must see of the London theatre season and it is now unsurprising that it is having an albeit short run in the West End. It offers more than a chance to partake in a jaded parlor game of Shakespearian allusion. This play is undoubtedly a product of the era of Shakespeare, but the question of Shakespeare's authorship is meaningless. It is really a question of the difference between views of literature in Shakespeare's era and our own.
Paul Murphy, the Union Theatre, Southwark, London
By William Shakespeare and John Fletcher
Directed by Phil Willmott
Designed by Javier De Frutos
Produced by Ellie Collyer-Bristow for MokitaGrit in association with The Steam Industry
The Union Theatre, Southwark
204 Union Street, London SE1 OLX
www.doublefalsehood.org
The issues surrounding the authorship of this play have been bubbling away for quite some time, since Double Falsehood was known in the 18th century to be a re-writing of the lost play Cardenio by Shakespeare and John Fletcher. The play is set in Andalucia and was originally a story told as part of Miguel Cervantes masterpiece Don Quixote. Double Falsehood was one of a number of collaborations which also included the Two Noble Kinsmen, a play which was not included in the first folio but which has come to be accepted as a work of the Shakespeare canon even though a great deal of it may be the work of Fletcher. The play was then re-written and re-presented as a lost Shakespeare work by the theatrical entrepreneur and Shakespeare scholar, Lewis Theobald, in 1727. Theobald was a great rival of Alexander Pope, his contemporary and England's greatest poet at the time. Theobald has come down to us as the chief dunce in Pope's scathing satire The Dunciad but Theobald was an important yet flawed figure. The underlying issue of authorship at work here is the division between concepts of writers and authors in Shakespeare's time which viewed literature as functional and/or entertainment, thus inherently collaborative and the myth of quasi-divine inspiration of often diseased genius loner writers purveyed by the Romantic era.
The Union Theatre is an intimate (meaning small) context to present this ‘new’ play by Shakespeare, new because it was recently included in Methuen’s Collected Works of the Bard, thus re-igniting the old controversy about its authorship which is also vigorously detailed, in fact exhaustively so, in the Methuen text. Later this year the RSC will shape a new piece, Cardenio, out of the surviving source material. The small ensemble cast delivered their lines passionately, enthusiastically during the several Acts and a number of underwritten scenes which contained no great poetry but lots of very competent stuff. There seemed to be a division between Leonora (Emily Plumtree) with a Home Counties accent and Violante (Jessie Lilley) with a Scouse - Liverpool - one, this was generally echoed through the rest of the play intimating the interesting regional or gender implications. Shakespeare himself originated in the Midlands and must have been regarded as a rural type, rustic or rude mechanical in London for some time after his arrival in the later part of the 16th century. Also he happened to have begun his career in rough, nasty Southwark where the Union theatre happens to be based then moved to Silver Street near Enfield as he began to make his packet – career began to gather momentum.
There are a number of reasons why Double Falsehood has been rejected by the makers of the Shakespearian canon. Generally speaking it is slight, a curiosity rather than a major play for there are several indications of authorial naivety. For instance, some scenes end with a character who then opens the next one, a kind of primitive jumpcut. The bumptious, predictable, patriotic dirge of the opening prelude is another sign, the general lacklustre dramatic verse another. If Shakespeare's early plays read like cut up poems that he had rejected as poems then learned to re-use as supposed dramas, he is fully in charge of the dramatic craft by the time of his Macbeth, for instance. This play is not another Macbeth. However, Double Falsehood has the power to inspire us, to make us love Shakespeare again. This production in this intimate venue with a cast that is clearly both passionate and charged by what it is doing, is really a must see of the London theatre season and it is now unsurprising that it is having an albeit short run in the West End. It offers more than a chance to partake in a jaded parlor game of Shakespearian allusion. This play is undoubtedly a product of the era of Shakespeare, but the question of Shakespeare's authorship is meaningless. It is really a question of the difference between views of literature in Shakespeare's era and our own.
Paul Murphy, the Union Theatre, Southwark, London
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