Measure for Measure holds clues to Shakespeare’s awareness of how church marriage laws affected Jacobean audiences . . Cassidy Cash, host of the podcast, That Shakespeare Life, recently interviewed Cynthia Greenwood about her close study of Measure for Measure, and her research into the way in which Shakespeare’s audiences of 1604 found themselves in the crosshairs of the church courts if they entered into an informal marriage, a practice that had been considered legal for centuries under English common law. In this episode Cynthia explores a revision to canon law in 1604 and how the plot of Measure for Measure suggests Shakespeare’s own awareness of how the law affected ordinary Jacobean citizens. As quoted on ‘That Shakespeare Life’ (Episode 276) at CassidyCash.com: If you… Read More…

In Born with Teeth, a 2022 world premiere on view at the Alley Theatre in Houston, playwright Liz Duffy Adams introduces us to the wildly attractive notion that William Shakespeare, the world’s greatest playwright, actually collaborated with his famous Elizabethan rival, Christopher “Kit” Marlowe, on the Henry VI history cycle from 1591-1593. In her new play Adams chose to revisit this moment after absorbing a radical claim set forth by editors of the New Oxford Shakespeare in 2016. Using computer-based stylometric analysis of word frequency in Shakespeare’s plays to determine who (besides Thomas Nashe) may have contributed to the Henry VI history cycle, the editors concluded that specific sections of two of the plays were composed by Marlowe himself. Surprisingly,… Read More…

In today’s post, I’m re-publishing a review released in 2008 on BlogCritics, which explores Diana Howie’s elegant play, Susanna and Will. Will the real William Shakespeare ever come forward? Not much chance of that, if only in our imaginations. The mystery of Shakespeare’s life and career persists. How do we reconcile our image of the absentee husband and father from Stratford-upon-Avon with the prodigious output of the London-based poet and player? Susanna and Will is an elegant work by playwright Diana Howie, produced in past years by Houston’s Country Playhouse Black Box Productions (now the Queensbury Theatre), as well as Houston’s Main Street Theater. The play imagines the reunion of Susanna Shakespeare and her father, offering satisfying answers to questions that… Read More…