"Shakespeare - The World as Stage" by Bill Bryson

Above: "Shakespeare - The World as Stage" - Bill Bryson - 196 pages.

Bryson's prose is easy and breezy. This short book reads incredibly fast. There is so much mystery to Shakespeare's life... so little documentation. Bryson recounts numerous stories of the tedious research of parish and City of London records by Shakespeare-philes (sic) to better document the bard's life.

I completed reading this book today. Here's Amazon's short summary:

Bill Bryson's Shakespeare pairs one of history's most celebrated writers with one of the most popular writers in the English language today. In this elegant, updated, illustrated edition, the superstitions, academic discoveries and myths surrounding the life of one of the world's greatest poets are evoked through a series of full-color paintings, drawings, portraits, documents and photographs. Bryson also discusses the recent discoveries of the Cobbe portrait and the remains of Shakespeare's first theatre in Shoreditch.

The centuries of mysteries, half-truths and downright lies about Shakespeare are deftly explored, as Bryson draws a picture that includes many aspects of the poet's life, making sense of the man behind the masterpieces. In a journey down the streets of Shakespeare's time, Bryson brings to life the hubbub of Elizabethan England and delights in details of his folios and quartos, poetry and plays. He celebrates the glory of Shakespeare's language and his ceaseless inventiveness, which gave us hundreds of now indispensable phrases, images and words. Amazon.com

Bryson's prose is easy and breezy. This short book reads incredibly fast. There is so much mystery to Shakespeare's life... so little documentation. Bryson effectively lifts the curtain hiding the mystery of Shakespeare's life. Among others, Bryson recounts fascinating stories about the tedious research of parish and City of London records by Shakespeare-philes (sic) to better document the bard's life in Elizabethan London.

From roughly 2009 to 2018 I was an annual attendee at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) in Ashland, Oregon. I would see my Aunt Joyce, who was retired there, and together we would attend two sometimes three Shakespearean plays. Occasionally, we would attend one of the non-Shakespeare plays as well. In those days OSF produced three, perhaps four, Shakespeare plays out of nine or ten plays annually. The performances would run from early May to October. Aunt Joyce passed away in 2018. Still, I returned to Ashland in 2020 and 2022, mostly for nostalgia reasons (not to mention my love for the obscure motorcycle ride from Winnemucca, NV to Ashland). I'd catch at least one Shakespeare play in these post Joyce visits. Joyce's daughter, cousin Cyd, lives in Ashland and we do a birdwatching walk after a breakfast at Brother's and reminisce about her mom.

Last year, I attended one OSF play, "The Tempest." It was performed in the classic way (good!) in the outdoor Allen Elizabethan theater, which was constructed to mirror the famed Globe theater in London in Shakespeare's day, Elizabethan times, at the turn of the seventeenth century. The play was fine. But it was performed as OSF was struggling financially and artistically.

In 2022, Artistic Director Nataki Gattett was relieved of her role as executive director. Planned plays, "It's Christmas, Carol!", for example, were canned. At the end of the 2022 season, OSF was short by $1.5 million to complete the 2023 season. Donations are being sought at this writing.

OSF was hit hard during the coronavirus pandemic and has never fully recovered. In March 2020, the reality of the pandemic became apparent, and the company shuttered its productions and laid off 400 staff, about 80% of its total workforce. There were other management and artistic changes made after Gattett departed.

Notwithstanding the obvious difficulties presented by the pandemic to keeping OSF going, there is a question in my mind as to how much of OSF's problems were self-inflicted. OSF had reduced the number of Shakespeare offerings in recent years... a Shakespeare festival with an increasingly diminishing Shakespeare presence.
OSF's majority grey hair customer base, who appreciated Shakespeare, may not have warmed up to some of the newer material which frequently dabbled in themes of racial and social justice. It did not help that during the truncated 2022 season OSF required theater goers to wear masks in the two thousand plus seating outdoor theater.

Despite his status as an "old white male," Shakespeare continues to be important. His plays present people and situations that we recognize today, and his characters have an emotional reality that transcends time. Shakespeare wrote some of the most influential pieces of literature that have shaped not just the English language, but also theater and pop culture. Shakespeare wrote about timeless themes such as life and death, youth versus age, love and hate, fate and free will, to name a few.

Earlier this year, I made an online comment on OSF's Facebook page, I said something to the effect: "Want to get OSF up and running and making money? Do more classic Shakespeare and ditch the ridiculous, onerous and unnecessary coronavirus protocols like masks." My comment received more "likes," some forty or so, than any other comment made on that particular thread.