Mrs. Shakespeare, or the Woman from Stratford

“Dear Reader,
These letters were found in an attic near London. I love attics; I love London. I still can’t believe it … [… ]
The dates? It started with “one thousand five hundred …”. [… ]
The next day, I found myself at the office of a renowned handwriting expert. He looked at me over his half-moon glasses and said:
– An excellent forgery! A perfect imitation of William Shakespeare’s handwriting!… period ink, period paper. How did you do it?
“Actually, I didn’t do anything.” …
Anca Visdei

This is how Anca Visdei, a French-language writer and playwright, introduces her collection of correspondence between the famous English playwright William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway.
Shakespeare—Will—tormented by the pangs of creativity, madly in love with his wife, and Anne, mother of their three children and his demanding muse.
The distance between the two—one in London, “that wretched city of London, infested with rats and brigands, covered in mud and vomit, haunted by the plague and women of ill repute,” and the other in Stratford-upon-Avon, with their three children, where “the green of the grass, the beauty of the sky, the clarity of the Avon … ”
He, “useless, a withered fruit, a lazy impostor,” in his own words; she, “muse and tormentor,” as she describes herself: they draw us into a dispute in which the dynamics of their relationship as a couple take shape, intertwined with those of the tortured author and his muse.
A few years later, William and Anne reread their correspondence and bring to light their shared joys—often experienced from a distance—their torments, their romantic passions, and their sorrows, both those spoken and those hidden.
Annick Gambotti and Eric Dalhen lend their voices to these two characters for a dramatized reading of this correspondence.

Madame Shakespeare or the Woman from Stratford
based on the book by Anca Visdei

Annick Gambotti, Anne
Eric Dalhen, Will
Anna Ozdemir, cello
Daniel de Morais, lute

Reservations at: https://www.lesmusicalesplurielles.org/evenements-a-venir/shakespeare/