Shakespeare is confined to his rooms as plague spreads outside. He is assailed by demands for new plays from his actors and the king. Outside the window, another playwright and a lover want him, and inside his head he hears his family question why he is in London rather than home in Stratford.
This is a harassed Shakespeare, fearful and under pressure to write successful plays that stay on the right side of the politics of the day, but still proud and arrogant enough to know that he is the best in the business. These stresses will lead to a purple patch of great plays; King Lear, Macbeth, and Anthony and Cleopatra.
Actor Ciaron Davies is impressive as a stressed and agonised Shakespeare, trying to come up with a play the satisfies King James VI & I and helps justify his right to his twin thrones of England and Scotland in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot. Pressure which is compounded by his fears that his daughter is missing church in Stratford and is suspected of being a Catholic. Davies’ gruesome description of the torture and death of traitors brings home the difficulties that Shakespeare is operating under.
His private life featuring difficulty with family disapproval and the loss of his son, are not drawn so well. A more sober, contemplative Shakespeare would have contrasted well with the agitated man we see throughout.
The difficulty is that there is more than enough material for one play here. It has been very thoroughly researched by playwright Michael Barry but too much of that is on show. There are so many recorded voices talking at Shakespeare, all of whom require some biographical background, and Davies is often left waiting for the voices to stop. It is hard to act against so many recordings and some, particularly Burbage, are repetitive. Perhaps it would have been better for them to have been internalised in Shakespeare’s monologues.
It was also good to see a proper stage set but it was a little cluttered, leaving Davies to frequently squeeze between fireplace and couch, the black bin bag under the fireplace seemed a little out of place too.
This is an intriguing imagining of Shakespeare’s life as a working playwright which is fascinating for anyone interested in the life from which those great works came, but sometimes less is more and a tighter focus might give the play more room to breathe.
‘Mister Shakespeare’ runs until Sun 28 Aug 2023 at Hill Street Theatre – Dunedin Theatre at 18:15