Friday evening, May 29, at 7:00 p.m., Hank Whittemore will perform his one-man play, Shake-speare's Treason, at the First Parish of Watertown, Unitarian Universalist, 35 Church Street, in Watertown Square. There will be a discussion and reception following the performance. All are welcome to attend. Suggested donation $10, students, free admission
Saturday, May 30, 2009, Shakespeare Symposium at the Watertown Free Public Library: The program will start at 9:30 a.m. with coffee, and the first talk will begin at 10 a.m. Lunch will be 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. We will be serving a sandwich lunch at the library. People may make a picnic to a nearby park, weather permitting. We will end by 4:30 p.m. There are restaurants in Watertown Square within walking distance of the library. People may like to go out to dinner in groups afterwards. Admission free and open to the public.
Alex McNeil, President of The Shakespeare Fellowship will be Master of Ceremonies for Saturday's event. He will also lead us in a Shakespearean game after lunch.
9:30 a.m. coffee
10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Bonner Miller Cutting, "Shakespeare's' Will Considered Too Curiously"
When the Last Will and Testament of William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is his "notorious bequest” of his second best bed to his wife. In this presentation, Will’s will is compared with other wills of the era, and it becomes clear that there is more to lament in this document than a single unfortunate word choice.
11:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. Mark Anderson, "Overjoyed, Over Him, Overbury: The New "Cobbe Portrait of Shakespeare" and what it means for the authorship question" Mark will discuss his research and recent events regarding the Cobbe portrait. For more information about the portrait, please see Mark’s blog
and a related Time - CNN article.
12:15 - 12:30 p.m. Cheryl Eagan-Donovan, “Sneak Peek: Nothing Is Truer than Truth”
Cheryl will show a clip of her documentary film on the life of Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford based on Mark Anderson’s book, “Shakespeare” by Another Name.
12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. Lunch
1:30 p.m. - 2 p.m. Test your Shakespeare wits - a game by Alex McNeil
2:00 p.m. - 3 p.m. Marie Merkel, "Raising the Dead: Ben Jonson & The Tempest."
"Mysteriously, it seems an inaugural work...", Harold Bloom
According to most scholars, The Tempest capitalizes on hot news of the day: the 1609 Wreck of the Sea-Venture, in the Bermudas. Since the earl of Oxford died in 1604, the burden of proof has been on his supporters, either to discredit the play’s many echoes of the Bermuda shipwreck, or to find a new author. Mysteriously, The Tempest just happens to be Shakespeare’s most Jonsonian play.
3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. Bill Boyle, "Shakespeare and the Succession Crisis of the 1590s"
The succession crisis of the 1590s was a result of Queen Elizabeth's refusal to name a successor, or even to allow discussion about the succession. Yet Shakespeare's Richard II is accepted by most scholars as a comment on Elizabeth's weaknesses and an implicit "thumbs up" to any potential Bolingbroke-like usurpers to the throne (e.g., the earl of Essex). How deeply involved was Shakespeare in commenting on the succession crisis? What other works of his and others ---such as Willobie His Avisa--- may have shared the succession agenda of Richard II?
