1616: The Secrets and Passions of William Shakespeare
- Submitting institution
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Birmingham City University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 33Z_OP_I0050
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- Attic Theatre, Stratford; Kings College, London; Rhodes College, USA, etc
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first performance
- -
- Year of first performance
- 2015
- URL
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https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1026244/1043682
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
-
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- _1616: The Secrets and Passions of William Shakespeare_ is a Research Catalogue exposition documenting the research processes and findings which informed the writing and dramaturgy of _1616_, a one man play by Gareth Somers about William Shakespeare. The play was published in the German English Language and Literature Journal _Hard Times_ (2016). The exposition presents this final text of 1616 along with some earlier iterations that embody various conflations of research, imagination, thought experiments, fictional dramatizations and what Robert Graves describes as poetic enquiry. Somers writes:
“2016 was the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death. In the light of growing nationalism and isolationism in Europe, I made it my task to explore this heavily freighted cultural symbol in the view that our mythos of 'great' national figures has a key ideological relationship with recreations of our cultural identity.”
Key issues raised include themes in the text relating to Shakespeare's relationship with power and the elite, his will, and the politics of the play. The work represents 3 years of research, re-writing, mini-collaborations, and the application of poetic imagination. As a narrative-driven text it offers a series of possibilities and provocations for further research. It was toured as a one man show playing 46 times in Stratford Upon Avon (2015), Stoke on Trent (2015), Manchester (2016), Bristol (2016), Windsor Castle as part of the Royal Collection Shakespeare exhibition (2016), The Kingswood Theatre London (2016), Rhodes College, Memphis TN (2016) and Hildesheim, Germany(2018). The intention had been to film a performance of the play in 2020 for inclusion on the exposition, but this was not feasible due to effects of Covid-19. Instead the exposition includes a brief sample trailer filmed under lockdown conditions.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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