“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.”
And Shakespeare’s merely didn’t mean our merely! It meant utterly, totally, absolutely, completely. See how that changes us – the players? We are suddenly centre stage! You don’t have to be acquainted with the plays already – we all hope to increase our knowledge, love and enjoyment of his work, whatever our starting points. There is always the magical moment when you go “I get it!”
How many plays Shakespeare write? Or co-write? From where did his amazing knowledge of human nature emerge? What about the sonnets – all 154 of them? We have picked apart a few of those. How on earth did he fit so much into his adult life of around 25 years? What was it like trying to stay on the right side of the Elizabethan court?
The aim of our group is to broaden our knowledge of Shakespeare through his plays and poems and what we know of his life. We are also interested in a wider exploration of what it was like to live in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. This was a period of great change for England: at 25 years old, Elizabeth took over an ailing and poverty-ridden nation.
In her forty-five years on the throne, she weathered several plots to topple her, the country was hit by natural disasters/bad harvests (see A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Titania’s moving speech about the results of these) and the very poor continued to suffer. The Poor Law came at the end of her reign, when parishes had to set up poorhouses to “care for” the starving - and this in spite of the huge wealth that had entered the country.
Drake’s circumnavigation and piracy brought back an estimated £400,000 worth of Spanish treasure, amounting to about £200 million in today's money. Elizabeth received a half-share, more than her entire annual income. No wonder there are references in the plays to this extraordinary feat (Puck’s “girdle round the earth in forty minutes” and Dromio’s description of the kitchen maid in terms of her spherical girth – “I could find out countries in her.”
We are full of ideas and enthusiasm and hope to spend time on some or all of the following:
- Play reading or Play listening via CDs
- Play watching
- Talking about the plays and their characters
- Delight in the language (including working out what the words actually mean!)
- The clothes, architecture, travel, social customs, politics of the time, food and drink (potatoes, but no tea!)
- Shakespeare’s contemporaries
- Art and culture of the period
- Music
Holidays in May, August and December mean that we have to vary the days of our meetings in those months. Our subs are £3 per session when we attend a meeting. We meet in the Residents' Lounge at Dovecote Housing, Lakes Lane, Newport Pagnell, MK16 8EG. To help you locate the lounge, the building is L-shaped and the entry points are via one of two doors at the back of the building about on the point of the L.
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