This presentation focuses on the writing of the text 1616, a one man play about William Shakespeare. It documents research processes and findings which informed the writing and dramaturgy of the final text.
Context
2016 was the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death. In the light of growing nationalism and isolationism in Europe, I made it my task to explore this heavily freighted cultural symbol in the view that our mythos of 'great' national figures has a key ideological relationship with recreations of our cultural identity.
BBC RADIO 4 Interview with Front Row: (4 Aug 2015)
Key issues raised include themes in the text relating to Shakespeare's relations to power and the elite, his will, and the politics of the play.
1616 toured as a one man show playing 46 times in:
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Stratford Upon Avon; Attic Theatre throughout July and August 2015
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Manchester; Kings arms 11th 12th Sept 2016
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Bristol Alma Tavern 19th-21st Nov 2016
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Stoke on Trent Mitchell Arts Centre as part of the Live Age Festival (a festival of arts dedicated to exploring creativity and age) 3rd October 2015
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Windsor Castle as part of the Royal Collection Shakespeare exhibition: Vicars’ Hall in Windsor Castle. 29 Sep 2016
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The Kingswood Theatre London, Kings College London as part of the Shakespeare 400 celebrations King's Greenwood Theatre, Guy's Campus 21.07.16 – 22.07.16.
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Rhodes College, Renaissance Society of America, 1616 Symposium held at Rhodes College, Memphis TN, 22 April 2016.
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It was also invited to the CDE Conference 2018, 'Fear and Anxiety in Contemporary Drama and Performance', at the University of Hildesheim (Germany) The German Society for Contemporary Theatre and Drama in English.)
Poesis as History, History as Poesis
Shakespeare studies always, to a degree, relies on the weaving of archeological evidence, analysis of legal documents and hermenteutics informed by a confluence of poetic imagination and intuition.
A creative work has greater poetic license but is similar in other respects if rigorous in its attention to research.
This final text of 1616 and some examples of earlier iterations shown here, embody various conflations of research, imagination, thought experiment, fictional dramatisation and what Robert Graves describes as poetic enquiry.
It offers possibilities for further enquiry and provocations for more detailed research. The work represents 3 years of research, re-writing, mini-collaborations and the application of poetic imagination.
The major processes that developed the dramaturgy are documented in this account.