Mark Rylance is not ready to make nice. The actor, best known to film audiences for his turn in the excellent independent British film Angels and Insects, was the first artistic director of the reconstruction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre from 1995 to 2005. During that time, he took on a slew of Shakespearean characters, ranging from Hamlet to Cleopatra. Now, he is risking all of that Bard cred with a new play he has written that questions whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote his plays.

In his new play, best abbreviated as I Am Shakespeare (the full title is much longer), Rylance creates a scholar character who encounters several historical figures who might have written some or all of the works now attributed to Shakespeare. The usual suspects pop up, most notably Christopher Marlowe, whose life and works have drawn plenty of conspiracy theories of their own. Frankly, I don’t see what the controversy is. Nobody can prove Rylance wrong, nor can he prove himself right. Maybe it’s fitting that we know more about the characters and stories created than the creater him(or her)self.

Posted Sun, 05 Aug 2007 17:44:31 and filed under Christopher Marlowe, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Theatre. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.