The Vavasour Macbeth

by Bart Casey

  “Yes,” replied Margaret. “They’re not expecting me to be in the office all the time now. I briefed people here about how to take over for me on the calls with Bosnia. Besides, I’m totally fixated with all this now—and I need to find out if there is some sort of connection to Shakespeare,” she said, pausing a moment. “Because I think that would really change the value equation for these damn papers. Shakespeare would make all the difference between a collection of family papers, and a treasure to kill for. Solving this is now the whole game for me.”

  The next afternoon, after almost two hours driving up the M40 motorway to Stratford-upon-Avon, Stephen and Margaret were glad to pass through the gates of the guest parking area at the riverside Avon Hotel. Once they checked in, they walked down a long corridor running off of the lobby to their spacious, luxurious room, with a cozy sofa and sitting area configured down at the end of the king-size bed. The bathroom was half as big as the main room and could best be described as a spa, with a tub for two and walk-in shower. Before leaving the hotel for a walk, they checked out the dining room on the other side of the lobby; it was empty at that hour but with its views of the river and tables outside on the terrace off the bar, it seemed a fine place to settle in later that evening.

  They couldn’t speed up their investigations, so they tried to relax and strolled from the hotel down to the riverbank just beside the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. Turning right, they soon came to the churchyard gates of Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare is said to be buried. The churchyard was Disney beautiful, Margaret noted, with none of the lumpy mounds normally formed after a few hundred years of burials, like on the ground around St. Mary’s, her home parish. Instead, the lawn around the stone markers was trimmed more like a golf green than a graveyard.

  But the inside of the church was no modern fabrication. Stratford had been a wealthy English market town for more than a thousand years, and nothing could say that more than this church’s high ceilings, stone arches, majestic cloisters, and stained-glass windows. Those windows, all given by wealthy parishioners, lined the chancel and the sides of the altar and were particularly brilliant when viewed through the dark arches of the walkways in front of them.

  As several signs marking the tourist path clearly indicated, Shakespeare’s grave and monument were up at the front, on the left side, nearest the altar. The somewhat odd monument to the bard was high on the side wall, behind the protective brass altar rail in front of the sanctuary. Shakespeare’s painted effigy had the look of a portly deer caught in the headlights, stuffed by a bad taxidermist, and then hurriedly nailed to the wall above his own gravestone, with his wife Anne’s gravestone conveniently just beside.

  Margaret looked askance at the memorial. “Seems a bit odd-looking, doesn’t it?” she observed.

  “Well, I think the good townspeople fiddled around quite a bit with all this as the tourist trade started to grow,” said Stephen. “There’s a famous sketch of the memorial from the eighteenth century that shows something quite different: a workingman with his arms folded on what appears to be a sack of flour or something. Somebody changed all that into this effete-looking fat man, holding a quill pen in one hand, paper in the other, with arms resting on some kind of leather cushion. I think it was all cobbled together very quickly at some point.

  “Oh,” Stephen continued, “and the master supposedly wrote the verse on the floor, but it doesn’t seem to be up to his usual standard,” he said before reading it aloud:

  “Good frend for Iesus sake forbeare

  To dig the dust enclosed heare

  Blese be ye man (who) spares thes stones

  And curst be he (who) moves my bones.”

  “A bit short on the Shakespearean grandeur,” said Margaret peering down at the lines carved on the slab on the floor.

  “More of the mystery,” said Stephen. “As you must know, there’s an enormous controversy about whether or not the individual known as the ‘Stratford man’ actually wrote the works published under his name. All sorts of conspiracy theories have argued the true author to be the Earl of Oxford, or Sir Francis Bacon, or even Queen Elizabeth herself. It’s a real circus. There are also people convinced that ‘clues’ are buried right here. One crazy Victorian-era American lady, Delia Bacon—no relation to Sir Francis—was actually arrested here, along with a work party of laborers she had hired, before they could carry out their plan to dig up the floor—and also bang out the memorial on the wall to find out the truth. She eventually went into an asylum—and she wasn’t even the wackiest. Another story says Shakespeare’s head was stolen from here by grave robbers and sold to someone for a phrenology examination. You know, to see if there was something odd about the shape of his skull that would explain his genius, and so on.”

  “What do you think about all that?” asked Margaret.

  “Oh, I think the ‘Stratford man’ was the chief talent behind all those plays. But there’s no truth to the belief that he wrote every word and crossed every ‘t.’ Even today any actor will take lines and change them or write new ones if he can make it smoother for himself to say them. You could even see that in our workshop two weeks ago. The kids would change a word or two when they could say it better a different way. That’s always happened.”

  “Well, in school we were told he did write every word, and the text was gospel,” said Margaret.

  “Maybe. But I think the plays were highly collaborative, and varied. I mean for every soliloquy there are thirty lines like ‘Who goes there?’ or ‘Advance and be recognized’ just before. Shakespeare would have focused on the high points—the soliloquies and so forth—not every word. And the plot and pacing. Then lots of people could have tinkered with the script, cutting it down or padding it up for any single version or performance. At least that’s my best guess.”

  They soon left the church, heading back to the hotel along the riverside path. They paused at a dock to admire the swans, who started gathering, excited that a feeding by tourists might be in their future.

  “It’s a perfect evening, isn’t it?” said Margaret.

  As they reached their hotel, they could see the outside terraces were filling up with customers eager to have an early drink out in the fine evening weather. Stephen and Margaret sat down and ordered drinks themselves, taking in the views of the river across the street and the back of the Memorial Theater just beside.

  “Excuse me,” said a young man at the next table with several friends, addressing Margaret. “I think I recognize you from television.”

  “Make my day!” said Margaret. “You must be one of the few people in England who actually watches the BBC News then because sometimes I get to read out the stories I cover on location. That’s about it, I’m afraid—not a glamorous actress, unfortunately.”

  “Yes, that’s it. Well done, you. Over here, we’re actually the glamorous actors and actresses, thank you very much.” All his tablemates laughed. “Don’t faint, or anything, but you’re actually talking to the Third Soldier in our Royal Shakespeare Company’s recent controversial production of Hamlet.”

  “Really? That’s wonderful,” said Margaret, genuinely.

  “And my beautiful companion for the evening—Grace, here—was a maid to Ophelia,” he continued.

  “You’re all well ahead of me,” said Stephen. “I’m a village schoolmaster.”

  “Not too bad, mate. Steady pay and they say Shakespeare was a Warwickshire one as well,” the young actor said.

  “Why was your Hamlet controversial?” asked Margaret.

  “It did get quite a lot of coverage—even by the BBC,” said the young man.

  “Sorry, I cover international events most of the time,” replied Margaret.

  “Oh, you do have a bad life, don’t you? Well, traditionalists didn’t like the fact our Hamlet was set in more modern times, with all the costumes either black or white Carnaby Street mod-type clothes. We all rather liked it—I mean, Shakespeare is just as relevant in a modern setting as it i
s in an Elizabethan one. That’s one of the good things about him—the work is sort of timeless. Our lead actor was Kenneth Branagh. He was very exciting to work with, even if you happened to be Third Soldier.”

  Grace added, “Some reviews said it was too gloomy, as well—more like Chekhov than Shakespeare. But, I mean Hamlet is bloody gloomy. My lady Ophelia drowned herself, for god’s sake.”

  “Do you like having all your work so focused on Shakespeare, or is that too limiting?” asked Stephen.

  “Oh, we do other things, too,” said another of the young men. “I’m Fred, by the way. We had Volpone by Ben Jonson a while back, and occasionally there are modern things as well. Besides, Shakespeare himself is very varied. After Hamlet we were all in Taming of the Shrew this year, so we went from gloom to acrobatic farce.”

  “You all must be really good to get in the Royal Shakespeare Company—even as Third Soldier,” said Margaret.

  Well,” said Grace, “there’s never a dull moment.”

  “Yes,” Stephen offered, “I was here with my school a while back for a workshop on Macbeth with some of your actors. It

  was fantastic.”

  “Oh, we heard about that. Weren’t you there with Brian and Tessie?” asked Fred. “They’re part of our lot.”

  “Yes. And an older actor named John.”

  “I think he’s mostly in the office now,” said one of the other young men.

  “Macbeth is my favorite,” said Grace. “I mean, the women in it—the witches and Lady Macbeth—really run the show. Unlike Hamlet, where the females are all as tame as lambs. I mean, Ophelia drowns herself because stupid Hamlet doesn’t seem to like her.”

  “It’s true,” said Stephen, “most of the plays have stronger men. Maybe it was the time?”

  “Sorry, mate,” said Grace. “Same as now, the women really ran the show. They just let the men think they were in charge. Really, most men are just clueless.”

  “There she goes,” said Third Soldier. “She goes off like this all the time—don’t you, Grace?”

  “Well, I agree with her,” said Margaret. “At work for me now, it’s all about Sarajevo, where male snipers are shooting at women and children simply trying to get through the streets, because of some type of testosterone-fueled territorial thing. It’s absolutely crazy. Any woman at all would do a much better job of running things down there.”

  “Too right, love,” said Grace.

  They carried on their good-natured chatting for a half hour—no one was in any mood to get into an argument on such a wonderful evening—until Stephen and Margaret bid the actors good night and went inside for dinner.

  ~

  The next day, Margaret and Stephen stayed late in bed and treated themselves to a Jacuzzi. Then they ordered a room service breakfast. When the girl came to the door with the tray, Stephen greeted her wearing the fancy hotel robe from the closet and had her put the tray down in front of the sofa. Then Margaret startled the girl, appearing from the bathroom in her matching robe, with her wet hair drying underneath a turbaned towel that made Stephen think she looked like the flying nun or something.

  “Oh, that looks lovely, thank you,” Margaret said to the girl, who retreated quickly, closing the door.

  “I bet she’s had an eyeful here,” continued Margaret. “This hotel looks like a movie set for naughty weekends. I don’t want to think about what the staff have come across.”

  “I’m sure we’re pretty tame,” said Stephen, lifting the silver-plated lid off the toast and sitting down.

  “Not too tame, I trust,” said Margaret.

  “No, Margaret, not at all. Coffee?”

  They settled comfortably into the seating area.

  After a few minutes, Margaret said, “You know, I think I’m in the wrong game. I mean, the BBC has been great. It’s everything I thought I wanted, and more. But I’m starting to think it’s just not right for me.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Stephen.

  “Well, I just go to one horror show, give a riveting eyewitness report for everyone at home, and then pop up somewhere else with more of the same. And do that over and over and over. And nothing ever seems to change.”

  “I do see what you mean. It must be incredibly hard to deal with all that sort of reality—hard not to be damaged by it,” said Stephen.

  “I can tell you I feel much better when I go over to work with the refugee kids at Shelter from the Storm. After being with them Monday night, I felt I’d made more of a difference than I ever do at work.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean...a little,” said Stephen. “Our Bosnian boy at school with the missing parents, Denis. He was a wreck when he first came at the end of the summer—but, at the workshop here with the actors, he was doing really well fitting in with all the other kids. I think he even may be finding a first girlfriend, for god’s sake. So he already seems to be healing a little, although who knows what’s become of his parents and how that will all turn out.”

  “Yes, I haven’t heard anything more from the team yet, but I know they’re still on it. I gave them the name of that village you got from Mrs. Quick about where the mother was from,” said Margaret. “Fingers crossed.”

  After sipping more of her coffee, Margaret continued, “I think that working with those sorts of people—the victims—might be better for me,” said Margaret. “I don’t have to make a decision right now, or anything, but that’s what I’m thinking about. My own family tragedy with my dad—and my mother just before—all that makes me realize none of us has all the time in the world, so I just might do something else next year. We’ll see.”

  ~

  An hour later, they went across the street to their appointment with the RSC archivist at the Memorial Theatre, whose office was in the Victorian wing attached to the back of the 1930s building.

  Based on Stephen’s preliminary phone call, the man had assembled a small array of Heminge memorabilia to look over. First were copies of the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and Office of Revels showing payments for plays made to Heminge from 1595 to 1616. All that amounted to a very steady business, especially at the end-of-year holidays, and the players got busier as James followed Elizabeth onto the throne and wanted even more plays performed. More important, one item was a kind of receipt that had a clear signature from Heminge himself. It was an exact match with the one on the Vavasour letter, although another of his signatures there was spelled “Hemynge” instead of “Heminge.”

  “I don’t think that’s a problem,” the archivist explained. “Spelling in those days was not a rigid affair. If you had more room, for example, you might add more letters, as a flourish. Even the famous six signatures of Shakespeare spell his surname differently, depending on how much space there was.”

  Afterward, downstairs in the lobby, the vast brick interior of the theater was quiet, with no matinee performance scheduled that day. The modern construction of the lobby, with the tallest red-brick walls Stephen had ever seen, pocketed with soaring glass windows, made for an excellent exhibition space, and the area nearest the windows was filled with display cases.

  The theme of the present exhibit was theatrical ephemera, so there were lots of old programs and still photographs of famous productions, as well as wonderful costumes on display.

  Ninety percent of everything was Shakespearean, but even Shakespeare would have probably approved of the three cases dedicated to Christopher Marlowe, who was certainly the leading rock star when the “Stratford man” first came to London.

  They were sashaying and strolling lackadaisically through the cases when Stephen suddenly came to a halt, saying, uncharacteristically, “Holy shit.”

  “Stephen?” asked Margaret.

  “Sorry—but come look at this. It’s a bloody scroll.”

  There, under glass in a long case, was a scroll with at least four feet of paper extending out from it to the right. Just like the one in Anne Vavasour’s papers, the length of paper had been achieved by pastin
g together regular-size sections edge to edge so they extended out in a continuous flow. It looked like very little of the whole thing was exposed. It would have been three or four times longer than what was being shown. Each page had a section of writing on it separated by thick lines in ink, and various symbols dotted around.

  “What does it say on that card down by you?” asked Stephen.

  Margaret leaned over the case. “It says this is the prompting tool used by the master actor Edward Alleyn containing all of the lines for the leading part in The History of Orlando Furioso, a play ascribed to Robert Greene. And it’s the only surviving player’s part from the time. Each of his speeches is separated from the others by ruled lines and the lines are in the sequential order for the play. The gibberish above them are the name of the character preceding each speech and the last few words of what the other actor actually says in his finish. The numbers are the act and scene. Below each clip is the name of the character who is to speak next, so Alleyn could look at them, if appropriate, or some stage direction, like ‘exit left.’ It’s on a scroll so he could just grasp the handle and roll it out in rehearsal, rather than holding a pile of sheets, which he might drop or get out of order. Many revisions to speeches are pasted on top of the originals—so it’s thick and lumpy in places.”

  “My god, I’ve never heard of such things,” said Stephen.

  “It also says that this contraption was an ingenious solution adopted by Mister Alleyn. Apparently, in the action, his character starts off reading from a scroll in Orlando Furioso, and Alleyn just kept holding this one through rehearsals to learn the lines.