Bagley Wright Theatre Equivocation Written by Bill Cain Directed by Bill Rauch November 18 - December 13, 2009 Running Time: 2 hours and 55 minutes with one intermission
It’s nice to think playwrights write for the sheer love of the art. But most writers can’t help but consider, “Can I get paid for this?” and “Will people pay to see this?”
This isn’t a modern notion (though the current economic slump certainly hasn’t helped the playwriting business). For hundreds of years, playwrights have tried to reconcile their artistic interests with the necessity of a paycheck.
In Equivocation, William Shakespeare is 40 and near the end of his career, but he’s far from leading a life of luxury. He and his troupe of actors are still very much dependent on their financial supporter, who happens to be the king. And the country’s leader signing your checks means there’s more at stake than just money.
King James wasn’t Shakespeare’s first patron, though. Historians estimate that Shakespeare wrote his first plays around 1590, but he didn’t start to gain notoriety until Lord Chamberlain assumed financial sponsorship of Shakespeare’s acting troupe about four years later. This led to Queen Elizabeth taking interest in the company. The queen’s preferences held some sway over Shakespeare’s artistic choices—it is said that he wrote his comedic The Merry Wives of Windsor after the queen requested another appearance by the humorous character Falstaff.
But King James I’s ascension to the throne in 1603 also brought an ascension of sorts to Shakespeare’s company. James took them under royal patronage, naming them the King’s Men. And the result was a series of works that were heavily influenced by their new backer. While Shakespeare’s previous works were primarily comedies like Windsor or fictional love tragedies such as Romeo & Juliet, his plays post-1603 consist of many tragedies that parallel British events.
It is important to note that, as Shakespeare tells Sir Robert Cecil in Equivocation, he never explicitly wrote current events into his works. To do so was actually illegal, no matter the writer’s point of view. But one observes that people and events of the 17th century seeped into Shakespeare’s plots in a way that Queen Elizabeth and the 16th century did not. It is natural that this shift occurred, as the King’s Men sought to keep their financial backer entertained and happy—and what makes a king more tickled than seeing his reflection in a positive light?
Here are three topics, featured in Shakespeare’s later works, that were influenced by the king.
Politics
Hamlet (which first premiered in 1603), for example, appealed to James and his queen, Anne, both in ways subtle (Denmark held a special place in the couple’s hearts, as they had honeymooned there) and not so subtle. Having just endured a tense waiting period before he was named Elizabeth’s successor, James would have identified with the plight of the rightful king against those who want to keep him from his crown. One assumes that James rooted for Hamlet, the heir to the throne, against the corrupt Claudius.
Marriage and Religion
During this period of English history, citizens debated the court’s banning of all religions aside from Anglicism. Non-Anglicans hoped that James would reverse this, as his mother was Catholic, and the beginning of his reign gave them hope that he would hear their pleas. Citizens were sometimes even allowed to debate the Anglican stance on various issues, with marriage serving as a popular topic. Appropriately, Shakespeare featured marriage in Measure for Measure, a new play that premiered Christmas 1604. In examining sex before marriage, the punishment for adultery, and Isabella’s dilemma of maintaining chastity versus saving her brother, Shakespeare reflected the issues that legal and religious minds contemplated.
Corruption in the Court
Additionally in Measure for Measure, the character Duke Vincentio and King James possessed similar characteristics. Both the duke and the king struggled with issues of how to rule fairly and efficiently—James often said he was too soft with criminals, and the duke also worries that too much corruption exists in his land. James’s naysayers criticized the rampant sex, money, and opulence that characterized his court. Some historians believe Shakespeare defended James by writing Antony & Cleopatra in 1607. As Alvin Kernan writes in Shakespeare, the King’s Playwright: Theatre in the Stuart Court, 1603-1613, “James and his courtiers looked cheap and vulgar only so long as they were confined to the realistic settings of Whitehall and Windsor. Relocate them to some epic scene and their English vices become Egyptian virtues.”
By romanticizing James’s shortfalls, Shakespeare attempted to repay James’s investment—not in money, but in something arguably more beneficial for a king: good PR.
