THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 23, 1995 TAG: 9504180548
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Bard.
As far as we know, today is William Shakespeare's natal date. The great Elizabethan dramatist was christened April 26, 1564, in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, England. The custom was to baptize a child three days after his birth, so we're guessing, in lieu of any other record.
We do a lot of guessing about Shakespeare because we know so little about him. The registers of Holy Trinity Church record that he was buried April 25, 1616, so scholars deduce that he died two days earlier, on the same day as his birth. Today, that's very neat, tidily coinciding with the Feast of St. George, England's patron saint.
Entirely too neat for journalists, who tend to be suspicious of tidy coincidences - one reason why we are so often fooled.
But, as far as we know, Shakespeare lived his 52 extraordinarily productive years in Stratford and in London 85 miles away, where the glove-maker's son became an actor and playwright, crafting masterpieces for the ages like ``Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,'' ``A Midsummer Night's Dream'' and ``King Lear.''
``We are such stuff/As dreams are made on,'' he wrote, ``and our little life/Is rounded with a sleep.''
The Episcopal register of the diocese of Worcester attests to the marriage of one Willelmum Shaxpere, 18, to Annam Whateley (perhaps a scribal error for Anne Hathaway, 26) in 1582. Their daughter, Susanna, was christened six months after the wedding; two years later, twins Judith and Hamnet were born.
So we know he was a dad. But we don't know much else. Hamnet died in 1596. At the end of his own life, Shakespeare willed ``my second best bed'' to his wife - an act that could be interpreted variously as affection or pique.
We have no play in his handwriting, but we have plenty of conflicting printed versions, a circumstance that has afforded many editors endless amusement over the centuries.
Shakespeare was the greatest writer in English for his time and, arguably, all time. His Prologue to ``The Life of King Henry the Fifth'' called for ``a Muse of fire, that would ascend/The brightest heaven of invention.'' If anyone in fact ever had one, it was certifiably Bill.
His works endure because they speak to human emotions and preoccupations that never go out of date. Garb the actors as you will, in the attire of the author's era or in the futuristic pajamas of the Starship Enterprise, Shakespeare's lingo rings. A sound source on this is John Barrymore (1882-1942), the antic and profligate ``Great Profile'' who stunned Broadway with his ``Hamlet'' in 1922.
``You can play it standing, sitting, lying down, or, if you insist, kneeling,'' he testified, according to his biographer Gene Fowley in Good Night, Sweet Prince. ``You can be cold-sober. You can be hungry, overfed or have just fought with your wife.
``It makes no difference as regards your stance or mood. . . .''
Barrymore confessed that, one evening before a performance in London, he found himself ``over-served with Scotch'' at the home of an attentive lady. He made it intact not only to the theater but a considerable distance into the play. But the actor was halfway through the ``To be or not to be'' speech when ``it became expedient to heave-ho, and quickly.''
Barrymore repaired to the draperies of the inner stage and barfed. Then he returned downstage and finished the speech. After the show, one of his sponsors to the Garrick Club accosted the incomparable John.
``I say, Barrymore,'' he chortled, ``that was the most daring and perhaps the most effective innovation ever offered. I refer to your deliberate pausing in the midst of the soliloquy to retire, almost, from the scene. May I congratulate you upon such an imaginate business?
``You seemed quite distraught, but it was effective!''
To which Barrymore replied, ``Yes, I felt slightly overcome myself.''
Shakespeare would undoubtedly have applauded.
The Bard was buried in the chancel of the Stratford Church. In those days, when consecrated ground became overcrowded, remains were often removed to make room for new guests (as the Bard notes in the ``Hamlet'' gravedigger scene). So there was a cautionary epitaph graven upon the stone laid over Shakespeare's final resting place, which read (with updated spelling):
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here!
Blessed be the man that spares these stones
And cursed be he that moves my bones.
To date, no one has disturbed them - as far as we know.
- MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia Wesleyan
College. by CNB