Written and directed by Ian Wild, Mrs Shakespeare is a dark comedy performed by Irene Kelleher. She plays a woman who believes herself to be a reincarnation of William Shakespeare. Wielding a pink-feathered quill she expresses her frustration with contemporary critics who have failed to recognize either her true identity or the genius of her new works, such as Hitler the First and Charles the Third (Not). We gather that the woman’s professorial parents really did name her William Shakespeare, and that she has suffered from the kind of upbringing that gives ‘dysfunctional’ a bad name. They gave her a codpiece and a ruff for her birthday. She is now in a mental hospital and has been put in the care of Henry, a psychiatrist with a heavy Austrian accent and a very short temper. In his frustration at his failure to convince his patient that she is deluded he becomes so violent that she wishes she could go back to the relative comfort of electric shock treatment. Then she realizes that Henry too is a reincarnation of another figure from Tudor times, and his anger is explained…
Full of wild and whirling words, Mrs Shakespeare is packed with ideas. So many different topics are touched on that there is at times a certain lack of coherence, but perhaps that’s no bad thing in a depiction of madness. There are interesting observations about the nature of identity. ‘Who am I?’ is a repeated refrain. There are also some wry comments about the ‘reality’ of fictional characters whose existence seem more substantial than that lived by many ordinary people. At times we are invited to sympathise with those minor characters in Shakespeare who come to sticky ends, so there are clear echoes of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. As with that play, those who are very familiar with Hamlet will enjoy spotting the many sly references to it; look out for ‘We must be patients’. In true Shakespearian fashion Wild’s script is full of such puns – I particularly liked ‘Titus Androgynous’. There’s a touch of Equus when the woman complains that Henry’s therapy is designed to turn her from being a unique individual into someone ‘ordinary’.
Kelleher energetically conjures up the many voices that invade the woman’s thoughts as she struggles to rewrite Hamlet. There’s a grandly orotund Polonius, an East End Jack-the-lad Claudius, a cackling skull-tossing gravedigger and the ‘poncey privileged Prince’ himself. She plays these parts in an appropriately crazed, unrestrained manner, though she lowers the volume and conveys a moving vulnerability as Ophelia, ‘weeping in her saturated gown’. I would have liked more of these quieter, reflective moments, but nevertheless Kelleher’s powerhouse performance is undeniably impressive. This is an ambitious play, performed with considerable panache. Highly recommended. ★★★★☆ Mike Whitton 1/7/15
