BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: SHAKESPEARE

HOW MANY TOMORROWS DID MACBETH NEED?

“Then there’s Shakespeare. His antiquated language is confounding to any reader, and such passages as ‘Tomorrow
and tomorrow and tomorrow…’ well, wouldn’t one tomorrow be enough.”

  James Reynolds in The Crossett (Arkansas) News Observer (1959)]
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THOMAS JEFFERSON & JOHN ADAMS JOURNEY TO STRATFORD

While in England in 1786 on diplomatic business,
 Thomas Jefferson visited the birthplace and home 
of one of his idols: William Shakespeare. He was 
joined by John Adams, who was then the U.S. ambassador 
to Britain. The pair weren’t particularly impressed 
when they got to Stratford-Upon-Avon — Adams called 
it "small and mean," and Jefferson was appalled by 
the costs, noting each amount paid ("for seeing 
house where Shakespeare was born, 1 shilling; 
seeing his tomb, 1 shilling; entertainment, 4 shillings …").
But the two Founding Fathers did partake in a custom 
of the time: They cut off a bit of an old wooden chair 
that was reportedly Shakespeare's own as a souvenir. 
Some 220 years later, the chip was displayed at Jefferson's Monticello home, along with a wry note he'd written: 
"A chip cut from an armed chair in the chimney corner in Shakespeare's house at Stratford on Avon said to be the identical chair in which he usually sat. If true like 
the relics of the saints it must miraculously reproduce 
itself."

From INTERESTING FACTS website for December 5, 2022
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QUIZ #86543

What noted author and short-story writer (one of his
novels is The Sheltering Sky) composed the incidental 
music for the Helen Hayes production of  Twelfth Night?

(Answer below)
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“The most important thing to remember about Shakespeare 
is that he was a writer, working on commission… I like 

to think that if the bard were alive today he’d be out 
on the beach in Beverly Hills tapping out ‘High Concept' 
]movies of the week on his Wang Word Processor, up to 
his ruff in cocaine.”

                               Maureen Lipman

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IS THIS THE ONLY PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE PAINTING
DURING THE PLAYWRIGHT'S LIFETIME?

"Cleaning removed a heavy black beard to reveal 
an original, lighter trimmed and pointed beard.

Removing the frame for closer examination uncovered
 the stylised letters RP to the top right of the 
painting—the cypher of Robert Peake the Elder 
(c.1551-1619), who by 1576 was recorded as being 
in the pay of the Office of the Revels, which oversaw
 the performance of plays for Queen Elizabeth I.

...

Peake’s son William (c.1580-1639) owned a successful 
print shop and knew the engraver Martin Droeshout, 
who created the image of Shakespeare for the 1623 
First Folio of the Collected Works. The National 
Portrait Gallery holds Droeshout engravings published 
by the Peake family press.

excerpted from THE ART NEWSPAPER (November 11, 2022) 
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2022/11/22/is-this-
really-the-only-portrait-of-william-shakespeare-made-
in-his-lifetime

JAMES BROUGHTON ACTING IN THE TEMPEST AT
AGE 10

“In the scene chosen I was supposed to be invisible
 to Trinculo and Stephano during their drunken
 buffoonery. The only words I had to say several 
times were two: ‘Thou liest.’ But I was so panicked
 by stage fright that I peed in the wings, leaving 
a puddle to puzzle the stage manager. Years later 
at Stratford, in the summer of 1951, I watched Alan Badel perform Ariel to the Prospero of Michael Redgrave. 
He was naked, silver white, slender as a magic wand, 
gracefully powerful enough to carry out any astonishments 
a poet might require. He reminded me so much of my own glittering guardian that I knew then for certain that Will Shakespeare had had a lifelong collaborating angel.”

from Contemporary Authors series Volume 12
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BARD & THE BARD

“The Thane of Cawdor by David Bard is Macbeth as a 
detective story, the narrative as it might have been 
written by Lady Macbeth’s physician before the 
sleep-walking had confirmed the suspicions which 
he had formed in evidence as (reported in the play) 
left by the Macbeths.”


The Amen Corner (Saturday Review, August 7, 1937)

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SONNET FRAGMENT

"Nor marble, nor gilded monuments
 Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme."
 Perhaps being boastful is not too wise,
 But even in poetry it pays to advertise.

Louis Phillips