The Stage is Shakespeare’s

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Will Shakespeare appeared for pictures all around his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon on his 450th birthday.[/caption]

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Revels with the Bard in Stratford-upon-Avon

It’s not often that you get to meet William Shakespeare, so what a treat to bump right into him recently in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. And thereby hangs a tale.
All the world’s a stage (to shamelessly coin another of the Bard’s phrases), although in this case, the stage is Shakespeare’s and it’s the world that comes to him.
Visitors to the lovely Warwickshire market town where England’s most famous literary export was born in 1564 are always in abundance, no more so than for the annual Shakespeare’s Birthday Celebrations. In April there was pomp and pageantry aplenty to mark the 450th anniversary of the writer’s birth; next year there will be more cakes and ale; and already the game’s afoot to prepare major commemorations in 2016, the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death.
Shakespeare bestrides the world like a literary Colossus, his work so rich with timeless situations, of love and loss, power and pride, families and friendship; he is simply the most performed playwright. And while our esteemed editor immersed himself in the opening of Hamlet at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London prior to its world tour, I joined the crowds to pay homage at Stratford’s uniquely colorful birthday bash.
Fans began seeking out the Bard’s place of birth in the 1650s, but it was a spectacular three-day festival thrown by the actor David Garrick in 1769 that really put Stratford on the map and Shakespeare on the streets: Characters from the plays gambolled, there was a fabulous masked ball and Garrick hailed Shakespeare in an ode as “the god of our idolatry.”
In 1824 the Shakespeare Club celebrated the April 23rd birthday with feasting and a procession to Holy Trinity Church where Will lies buried; then in 1893 boys of King Edward VI School, Shakespeare’s old alma mater, paraded to lay flowers at his grave, a reverence that became an annual event.
These days, the formalities and frolics are held over the weekend closest to April 23, with a Cradle-to-the-Grave procession and all-day festivities around town on Saturday. Sunday sees a special Shakespeare Service in Holy Trinity Church.
It’s worth arriving early to bag a good viewpoint for Saturday’s procession and “Handing Over of the Quill.” Already by 9 a.m. visitors were milling in the sunshine and watching the King’s Brass from King Edward VI School set up shop beside the stage at the junction of Henley, Bridge and High Streets. Parking had been surprisingly easy, with plenty of space a 10-minutes’walk out of the center. We nabbed prime spectator positions at the top of Bridge Street.
Within the hour, the thoroughfare was lined four deep with flag-waving and smartly uniformed ranks of balloon and bouquet bearing local schoolchildren.
From 10:30 a.m., processions were moving off from points around town, to converge in a 1,000-strong whirl of marching dignitaries and costumed characters, toe-tapping trombones, horns and drums. The National Anthem struck up and a horse-drawn, giant 450th birthday cake heralded the arrival of the great scribe himself from the beautiful half-timbered Shakespeare’s Birthplace on Henley Street.
Speechifying on the podium followed and “Blessings be upon my native town / Now a place of worldwide renown.” Will handed over his white quill (“which in my writings served me well”) to the head boy of his former school, signalling fanfares from the Band of the West Midlands Fire Service, the unfurling of 72 national and sundry other flags along the streets, a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” and three cheers led by bellowing town criers.

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Accounts at Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church record that Shakespeare was both baptized and buried in the church.[/caption]

Gold and black balloons floated high into the morning air, young schoolchildren hopped in excitement (there was free cake to be scoffed back at Shakespeare’s Birthplace), and the head boy, brandishing the symbolic quill of the Bard’s legacy, led the procession to lay flowers at Shakespeare’s grave. Buttonholes of rosemary—“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance”—were de rigueur.

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Visitors stroll by Shakespeare’s Birthplace on pedestrianized Henley St.[/caption]

The People’s Pageant erupted as strolling minstrels and Morris Men, giant Shakespearean witches and fairies, samba and belly dancers played fast and loose through the center of town. Most surreal of all, a 20-foot-tall Lady Godiva mechanical marionette pitched up; on this occasion, the noble Saxon daughter of nearby Coventry, who legend says rode naked through the streets to protest against her husband Earl Leofric’s taxes, appeared respectably clothed.
Parade and pageant were a mix of the madcap and the ceremonious. Through the afternoon, as the jostling crowds dispersed to stroll the Elizabethan town, the pace became more leisurely. Programs are handed out so you can catch whatever takes your fancy from the entertainments, performances and workshops along streets, on the riverside, or in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and gardens.
The Shakespeare Houses in particular make magical backdrops—the Birthplace, where Shakespeare senior ran his glove-making workshop; elegant Hall’s Croft, where Will’s daughter Susanna lived with her physician husband; and Nash’s House and New Place, the site of Will’s last home. At King Edward VI School, there were tours to view the schoolroom where Shakespeare learned his Latin and rhetoric.

To Join the Party

THE BIRTHDAY: For news on Shakespeare’s Birthday Celebrations, Stratford-upon-Avon (April 25, 26, 2015), See www.shakespearesbirthday.org.uk

AROUND STRATFORD: For Stratford’s Shakespeare attractions, view:
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
www.shakespeare.org.uk.

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Royal Shakespeare Company www.rsc.org.uk.

Holy Trinity Church
www.straford-upon-avon.org.

General information, including restaurants, travel, events and accommodations, is at
www.discover-statford.com.

Look ahead to 2016 with Shakespeare400 at
www.shakespeare400.org.

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The town crier leads local dignitaries through the streets in the birthday People’s Pageant.[/caption]

Everything is pleasantly walkable and the fun is in the surprises, happening one moment upon Musyck Anon performing Summer Is Icumen In and another on Gloriana Living History Dance. We exchanged pleasantries with several Elizabethan ladies promenading beside the river—even their pooches sported fashionable ruffs—and Royal Shakespeare Company actors declaimed sonnets on the traditional chain ferry.

There’s plenty for kids too, with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) hitting all the right buttons: The Blood, Guts & Gore stage makeup demonstration was a must, and the stage fighting workshops in the Swan Gardens marquee roundly disproved Shakespeare’s notion that “a man can die but once.”
Floating sounds of a stainless steel band drew us to Hall’s Croft Gardens and House, and the unexpected sight of Shakespeare emerging from the doorway. He immediately vanished in a scrum of folk keen to include him in selfies to send home to America, Japan, Russia and every other point on the globe. The superstar declared himself in rude good health for 450 years old, but “a little behind schedule.” Nevertheless, he posed patiently for yet more pictures before vanishing again along Old Town.
Inns and teashops do a roaring trade throughout the day, or you could settle with a picnic as we did on the banks of the river. The view across the Avon to Holy Trinity Church is a perfect English idyll, while inside the church the air is thick with the aromas of flowers placed around Shakespeare’s grave in the chancel. The bust of the Bard of Avon, erected by his widow and friends in 1623, looks down from the wall, inscrutable as ever.
Alas, too soon the revels ended, the actors melted into air and the pageant faded. But you can catch it all again in April 2015, or come for the 2016 commemorations, which are shaping up to be something truly special. The Royal Shakespeare Company is leading a countrywide celebration from now to 2016, culminating with “Dream 16,” a national tour of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A major new project is also set to unlock the heritage of New Place and tell the missing story of Shakespeare’s mature years in Stratford.
In the meantime, Shakespeare400, a consortium of cultural organizations, is bringing together a portfolio of public performances and exhibitions in London and beyond, and the capital and Stratford-upon-Avon will host the 10th World Shakespeare Congress. There’s even a campaign to persuade the European Union to declare Shakespeare the first European Laureate. The game’s afoot indeed.