MANHATTAN THEATER SOURCE; DECEMBER 2009

AMELIA BASSANO SHORT PLAYS: PLAY NUMBER ONE (DRAFT)

(Actor 1 appears on stage with a copy of the First Folio)

Actor 1.One of the great unanswered questions is who wrote these plays in the
First Folio, and why [opens Folio to take out refrigerator magnet of Shakespeare,
and hangs it up]. Mr Shakespeare has such a magnetic personality that a whole
group of people in his home town, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, all
insist that he could and did write the plays that appeared under his name. Lets
hear what they say.
Actor 2 in Audience “Mr Shakespeare could have learnt everything in the plays
about Italy and Italian from a waiter at his local Italian restaurant. Dr J L Wilson.
Letter to the Times, April 2000.”
Actor 1. Thank you Dr Wilson. Now I would ask the audience. Has anyone ever
had pizza or visited an Italian restaurant? Please keep your hands up just for a
minute.
Now the author of the plays had very fluent Italian, made complex Italian
puns, and read Cinthio, Dante and Boccacio in the original. Please keep your
hand up if you can read Italian fluently, and if you learnt it from your waiter.
Anyone?
Now what about the music in the plays. The most musical plays in the
world. Three times more musical than any others. What do the Stratfordians
say?
Actor 2 in Audience “Everything Mr Shakespeare knew about music could
have been learned in only 6 music lessons. Professor Tom Dale Keever,
interview on Steal This radio, 2009.”

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Actor 1. So another question for the audience. Has anyone ever had a music
lesson? Great. Keep your hand up. Tell me, who has had a single music lesson
that taught you 16 songs, 70 technical musical terms , and how to make 330
musical references. Anyone who has had a music lesson like that, keep your
hand up……………… Have you tried writing plays?
Now lets look at the other aspects of Mr Shakespeareʼs education that
made him the fine upstanding figure you see before you. Stratford Grammar
School was actually just a one room schoolhouse in a tiny market town of 1500
people --but Stratfordians talk about it as if it were Harvard or Yale.
Actor 2 in Audience “The level of education revealed by the works is entirely
within the compass of anyone who had received only a grammar school
education. Dr Stanley Wells, the Shakespearean Birthplace Trust, Stratford Upon
Avon.”
Actor 1.Thank you Dr Wells. Um, dont you run Stratfordʼs major tourist industry?
And werenʼt you on the board of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Not exactly
neutral. are you? So tell me did Stratford Grammar School teach Italian?
Actor 2 in Audience. Well, no, but you could learn that by eating in any Italian
restaurant.
Actor 1. I see. Well, how about Hebrew? There werenʼt any kosher restaurants
in Elizabethan England, because it was illegal to be a Jew. So did Stratford
Grammar school teach Hebrew? Did it teach students to read the Mishnah and
the Zohar, both of which are used in A Midsummer Nightʼs Dream? Did it teach
them to write Hebrew, which is used in Allʼs Well that Ends Well?
Actor 2 in Audience. Um… well….
Actor 1. Or how about girlsʼ literature like the standard manual for etiquette at
court for girls, The Knight of Le Tour Landryʼs book for his four daughters, which
was used to write the Shrew play. Or Montemayorʼs Diana, in the original
Spanish, which was a favorite of the ladies at Court and used in Two Gentlemen
of Verona. Can you prove they were on the reading lists at Stratford Grammar
School?
Actor 2 in Audience. Um…well….
Actor 1. In fact, Dr Wells are there any records that show Mr Shakespeare
even went to Stratford Grammar School at all. Or did you just make it up?
Actor 2 in Audience. Well, actually, there are no surviving records. But…
Actor 1. Thank you. Case closed. [turning to entire audience] You look like a
smart audience. You know bullshit when you see it. Now how many people
have an English translation of the Bible at home. How many have 2 different
translations. Three translations. Five translations…. Nobody?
Shakespeareʼs plays use fourteen different translations of the Bible, and
make 3,000 Biblical and religious references. They are written in a very scholarly
way, not simply through inspiration. They are the most complex literary works in
the world and could not have been written by someone whose social background
was from Stratford and as an actor.
Actor 2 in audience. (protesting) Will was a genius. He had great imagination.

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Actor 1. Oh really Dr Wells. Then prove it. Lets see. Show the audience how
book 6 of Josephusʼ The Jewish War can be used to develop the night scene in
Macbeth. Give me a few examples. Use your imagination.
Actor 2 in audience. … I cant.
Actor 1. No? Didnʼt think so. See, the author of the plays didnʼt do it just by
making it up in their imagination. The author carefully drew on sources, and
linked them all together.

So now the time has come, we need a volunteer from the audience. Yes
please come up onstage (actor 2 comes on stage). Thank you for volunteering.
So if William Shakespeare didnʼt write the plays, someone else did. Lets see
what they really thought of Mr Shakespeare. Here, take a sock puppet.
[With all seriousness, as if this were the Royal Shakespeare Company, they
bring on a tiny cardboard box proscenium arch theater within which to situate Mr
Shakespeare and 2 colored sock/glove puppets for Mistress Quickly and Sir
Hugh operated by Actor 2]
Lets see how William gets tested in his ʻAccidenceʼ meaning on page one
of his Latin Grammar. My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, we present Merry Wives
of Windsor and As You Like It, starring William Shakespeare himself.

Actor 2. MISTRESS: Sir Hugh, Sir Hugh, young William profits nothing in the
world at his book. I pray you, ask him some questions in his Accidence.
Actor 2. SIR HUGH EVANS: William, how many numbers is in nouns?
Actor 1. WILLIAM PAGE: Two.
MISTRESS : Truly, I thought there had been one number more, because they
say, 'ʼOd's nouns.'
SIR HUGH EVANS: Peace your tattlings! What is 'fair,' William?
WILLIAM PAGE: Pulcher.
MISTRESS : Polecats! there are fairer things than polecats, sure.
SIR HUGH EVANS: You are a very simplicity Woman: I pray you peace.
What is 'lapis,' William?
WILLIAM PAGE: A stone.
SIR HUGH EVANS: And what is 'a stone,' William?
WILLIAM PAGE: A pebble.
SIR HUGH EVANS: No, it is 'lapis:' I pray you, remember in your brain.

Actor 1. Act Two. The clown William meets Touchstone in the forest.

[actor 2 takes off sock puppets and becomes Touchstone a black sock puppet]
Actor 2. TOUCHSTONE: Good even, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy
head; nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend?
Actor 1. WILLIAM: Five and twenty, sir.
TOUCHSTONE: A ripe age. Is thy name William?
WILLIAM: William, sir.

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TOUCHSTONE: A fair name. Wast born i' the forest here?
WILLIAM: Ay, sir, I thank God.
TOUCHSTONE: 'Thank God;' a good answer. Art rich?
WILLIAM: Faith, sir, so so.
TOUCHSTONE: 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and
yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?
WILLIAM: Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.
TOUCHSTONE: Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying,
'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man
knows himself to be a fool.' The heathen
philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape,
would open his lips when he put it into his mouth;
meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and
lips to open. You do love this maid?
WILLIAM: I do, sir.
TOUCHSTONE: Give me your hand. [takes magnet hand] Art thou learned?
WILLIAM: No, sir……………….
[ actors put down the theater]
Actor 2. And so on it goes, Touchstone out-thinks William, mocks him, and
threatens to kill him in 150 ways.
Actor 1. So if the clown William is William Shakespeare, then who is
Touchstone? He is put to his purgation, has a brilliant dry mind, and is a great
poet whose work is not understood. Could he represent the real author?
Actor 2. What is the Greek for Touchstone? Does anyone in the audience
know?……..Nobody speaks Greek anymore. Never mind. I looked it up earlier.
Touchstone in Greek is basanos.
Actor 1. And he is put to his purgation. Which in Greek is also basanos.
[they shake hands]
So is there a great poet in Elizabethan London whose work was not understood
and whose name is something like Basanos? Hmmmm….could it be….
[ they make fake trumpet noises]
Together; AMELIA BASSANO.

[actors move into Newscast form.]

Actor 1/Newscaster/Shakespeare Good morning viewers. I am Bill
Shakespeare for the Shakespeare Survey. The latest news is going all round the
globe and back again in 40 minutes. Can you tell our viewers about this latest
Shakespeare discovery. Iʼve been the leading candidate for 400 years. Who
have they found this time who is a better candidate than me?
Actor 2. The first woman to publish a book of original poetry.
Actor 1. Mistress to the man in charge of the English theater.
Actor 2. From a family of Venetian Jews.
Actor 1. The court musicians who performed music for the plays.

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Actor 2. Oh dear. Mr Shakespeare has gone all limp. I think he has fainted. (to
the magnet] Say something!
Actor 1. Must have been the shock. Should we call 911?
[they fan him a bit and leave him lying down at front of stage as if dead]

Actor 1. Do you suppose Amelia left her name anywhere else ?

Actor 2. How about in Othello? What about those 163 lines that werenʼt in the
1622 Quarto but suddenly appeared in the Folio the next year. Read it for me
please Actor 1.
[actor 2 puts on feathery wings and mimes the dying swan]
Actor 1. What did thy Song bode Lady?
Hearke, canst thou heare me? I will play the Swan,
And dye in Musicke: Willough, Willough, Willough.
Moore, she was chaste: She lou'd thee, cruell Moore,
So come my Soule to blisse, as I speake true:
So speaking as I thinke, alas, I dye.
Actor 2. So the person who speaks these lines is Amelia. The image of the
great poet, the swan dying to music, is being associated with an Amelia. Very
strange. Now the next one is Portiaʼs casket speech from Merchant of Venice.
[actor 2 mimes the dying swan again]
Actor 1. Away then, I am lockt in one of them,
If you doe loue me, you will finde me out.
Nerryssa and the rest, stand all aloofe,
Let musicke sound while he doth make his choise,
Then if he lose, he makes a Swan-like end,
Fading in musique. That the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the streame
And watrie death-bed for him: he may win,
And what is musique than?
Actor 2. So here we have the dying swan being used to describe Portiaʼs
suitor Bassanio,
Actor 1. So put them together, what do we have? Two dying swans. The image
of the great poet. Both linked to the names AMELIA BASSANIO.
Actor 2; Gosh! Is it possible Actor 1?
Together; SHE HAS LEFT BEHIND HER SIGNATURES.

[actors put on white lab coats]

Actor 2. Is it just co-incidence?
Actor 1. Co-incidence my foot. We can prove it. Lets use statistics!
Actor 2. Probability theory! Math! That will show them. [gets out calculator]
Actor 1. Are there any Amelias in the audience? Any Bassanos?
Actor 2. They are unusual names. Each only found in 1 in 5000 names.

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Actor 1. And found together only in 1 case in 25 million. Thats why there arenʼt
any in the audience. In fact there is only one in the whole of the States. I checked
on the Web. But she lives in Brooklyn and couldnʼt be here tonight.
Actor 2. So how certain is it that these names appearing together with the image
of the great poet are not co-incidence?
Actor 1. [holding up calculator] Over 99.9999%.
Actor 2. So there you are. Statistics show the Stratfordians are dead wrong. The
plays were written by a woman
Actor 1. Who wrote them to communicate dangerous religious allegories.
Actor 2. Mr Shakespeare was just her play broker. Her front man. But he has
been in front far too long. I think heʼs dead. {Picks him up from floor and puts
him in a pocket} Goodbye Mr Shakespeare.
Together; and lets welcome AMELIA BASSANO LANIER.