by Mark Rylance
The Spartacus film score rises to a triumphant end, as members of the audience stand and shout ‘I am Shakespeare.’
The End.
A little jig is recommended for the curtain call.
Parallelisms Between the Writing of Bacon and Shakespeare
From Shakespeare
From Bacon’s Promus
…every Jack became a gentleman.
(Richard III)
Every Jack would be a Lord.
…the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast.
(Henry IV, Part One)
Better to come to the ending of a feast than to the beginning of a fray.
Good wine needs no bush.
(As You Like It)
Good wine needs no bush.
…the strings of life
Began to crack…
(King Lear)
At length the string cracks.
Make use of thy salt hours.
(Timon of Athens)
Make use of thy salt hours.
But I do love thee, and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
(Othello)
Matter is not without a certain inclination and appetite to dissolve the world and fall back into the ancient chaos; but that the overswaying concord of things (which is represented by cupid or love) restrains its will and effect in that direction and reduces it to order. (The Wisdom of the Ancients)
…out of heaven’s benediction com’st
To the warm sun!
(King Lear)
Out of God’s blessing into the warm sun.
To hazard all our lives in one small boat.
(Henry VI, Part One)
You are in the same ship.
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.
(Hamlet)
Tell a lie to know the truth.
…the world on wheels.
(Two Gentlemen of Verona)
The world runs on wheels.
Thought is free.
(The Tempest)
Thought is free.
Fortune governed as the sea is by the moon.
(Henry IV, Part One)
Fortune changes like the moon.
As if increase of appetite had grown,
By what it fed on.
(Hamlet)
If you eat appetite will come.
…can so young a thorn begin to prick?
(Henry VI, Part Three)
A thorn is gentle when it is young.
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
(Romeo and Juliet)
Sweet for the speech in the morning.
From The Bacon-Shakespeare Question by Nigel B. Cockburn.
MARK RYLANCE
Mark Rylance is an actor, theatre director, and writer. He spent his youth in America and returned to England in 1978 to train at RADA under Hugh Cruttwell. In 1980 the Glasgow Citizens Theatre gave him his first job, a year in repertoire, a trip to the carnival in Venice with Goldoni, and an Equity card.
He played Hamlet at ages sixteen, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, twenty-eight to thirty, at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and forty at Shakespeare’s Globe. In the early eighties he and a group of actors formed a theatre company, the London Theatre of Imagination which evolved into Phoebus Cart. In 1991 he played Prospero in Phoebus Cart’s production of The Tempest at the Rollright Stones, and on the Globe building site. That year Sam Wanamaker invited him to join the Artistic Directorate and he subsequently became the Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe from 1995 to 2005. During his career he has played in fifty productions of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He has also appeared on Broadway, in many English theatres, and on film and television.
Mark is an honorary bencher of the Middle Temple Hall, chairman of the Shakespearean Authorship Trust, a friend of the Francis Bacon Trust, President of the Marlowe Society, a Patron and Ambassador of Survival, the movement for tribal people, and Peace Direct, working for non-violent resolution of conflict.
A Nick Hern Book
I Am Shakespeare first published in Great Britain as a paperback original in 2012 by Nick Hern Books Limited, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP
This ebook edition first published in 2012
I Am Shakespeare copyright © 2012 Mark Rylance
Introduction and Production Note copyright © 2012 Mark Rylance
Mark Rylance has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover image: SWD (www.swd.uk.com)
Cover design: Ned Hoste, 2H
Typeset by Nick Hern Books, London
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78001 169 1 (ebook edition)
ISBN 978 1 84842 269 8 (print edition)
CAUTION This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Amateur Performing Rights Applications for performance, including readings and excerpts, by amateurs in English throughout the world should be addressed to the Performing Rights Manager, Nick Hern Books, The Glasshouse, 49a Goldhawk Road, London W12 8QP, tel +44 (0)20 8749 4953, e-mail [email protected], except as follows:
Australia: Dominie Drama, 8 Cross Street, Brookvale 2100, fax (2) 9938 8695, e-mail [email protected]
New Zealand: Play Bureau, PO Box 420, New Plymouth, fax (6) 753 2150, e-mail [email protected]
South Africa: DALRO (pty) Ltd, PO Box 31627, 2017 Braamfontein, tel (11) 712 8000, fax (11) 403 9094, e-mail [email protected]
United States of America and Canada (including stock performances): Peikoff Mahan P.C., see details below
Professional Performing Rights Applications for performance by professionals in any medium and in any language throughout the world (and amateur and stock performances in the USA and Canada) should be addressed to Peikoff Mahan P.C., 173 East Broadway, Suite C1, New York, NY 10002
Music Companies wishing to use Claire van Kampen’s music written for the original production should contact Nick Hern Books.