Shakespeare as Jewish Revenge Literature

DID AMELIA BASSANO LANIER WRITE SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS?

The New York experimental Shakespeare company, the Dark Lady Players, are about to put on their latest production, showing that As You Like It was not written by William Shakespeare but is rather a Jewish allegorical comedy written by Amelia Bassano Lanier (1569-1645), the first woman in England to publish a book of poetry. She was England's only Jewish poet of the period as well as mistress to the man in charge of the English theater, so she was certainly well positioned!

John Hudson, Artistic Director of the Dark Lady Players claims that As You Like It is a gigantic allegorical toilet joke in which Christianity and its creators goes down the toilet. This production brings out the fact that Touchstone carries two allegorical identities, one of which is to Sir John Harington the inventor of the flush toilet. The play also oddly includes two characters called Jaques-or Jakes-the Elizabethan for toilet, and many references to dunghills. Why? In the play, Duke Senior (an allegory for Vespasian Caesar, the inventor of the pay-toilet, but better known with his son Titus as the 'Roman conqueror' of Jerusalem), is flushed away by Noah's flood in an act of satirical revenge.

The result is a very funny play, or as Hudson says “the play within the play within the play”. Directed by Stephen Wisker, a 35 year old English Shakespeare director, who trained at the National Theatre in London, this As You Like It is unlike any previous production. “Nobody has ever detected the whole allegory before” declares Hudson, “and this will be the first production in the world to put it on stage”. As Ashley Currie, (who plays Orlando) puts it, “this ain't your grandma's Shakespeare”. The challenging role of Rosalind-the biggest female role in the Shakespearean canon-- is played with unusual insight by Kate Murray. As for Amelia Bassano herself, she appears in the play as a second additional allegory for Touchstone-whose name in Greek is basanos, and who is put to his purgation, which again in Greek is basanos. “It is exciting to take the text and turn it on its head” says Kirsta Peterson, who takes the role of Touchstone, “after two years working with the Dark Lady Players, I absolutely believe that Amelia wrote these plays.”

Meanwhile, in the July issue of the Canadian journal The Queen's Quarterly, a major review by Michael Posner describes the evidence for this new Shakespeare theory as being at least as convincing as that for William Shakespeare. Academics are slowly coming on board. Professor Catherine Alexander at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham was one of the first to recognize the theory as “a legitimate new area of scholarship” as she puts it. In recent weeks articles on the approach being taken by the Dark Lady Players have appeared all over the world, from Italy to Israel to India. Now it remains to be seen whether New York theater audiences are equally open-minded about overturning everything they thought they knew about England's most famous playwright.

As You Like It: The Big Flush opens at the Midtown International Theater Festival on 20 July. For further information see www.Darkladyplayers.com and
www.midtownfestival.org