A Cry of Players
“Will: And how shall I make order of the contrarieties in me?
Sir Thomas: By giving up parts of yourself, as all men do; it is called self-mastery.
Will: Which parts?”
Characters in William Gibson’s A Cry of Players
Many people are familiar with William Gibson’s The Miracle Worker, and Roger and I just saw an outstanding production of this piece at Ivy Green, Helen Keller’s home. But Gibson's A Cry of Players is less frequently produced, and less well-known. That is a shame, because it is a lovely play based loosely on Shakespeare’s life early during his marriage in Stratford — before an acting troupe visited and Will discovered the stage. The show debuted in New York City on November 14, 1968, and ran through February 15, 1969. In the 1970s, I saw a local version with a stunning set which I remember featuring a sweeping platform that came from a height of twenty feet or so stage left, and twirled in a spiral to stage right, and then to floor level back at stage left.
In the play, the twenty-year old Will is rather bored in a marriage to Anne, eight years his elder. Restless with the wonder of life, he feels stifled dabbling in his father’s uneventful business. Variety has said about the play: “But when a troupe of itinerant actors arrived and he heard the flowery poetry of the stage, it was the siren cry of players in his ears, and he determined to be himself thereafter, even though it meant life away from home, family, comfort and security… None of this is explicitly about Shakespeare or Stratford — neither name is used, although the characters are called Will and Anne…”
William Gibson had precious little to go on for even a fanciful biographical play about Shakespeare’s days on earth, for there are few records of the playwright’s actual existence. Because of the paucity of documentation on life events, some critics in the last few centuries have questioned Shakespeare’s penmanship. As Sarah Pruitt considers on history.com, “In the absence of such ‘proof’ of authorship, some skeptics have posed the question: How could a man of such humble origins and education come by such wealth of insight, wide-ranging understanding of complex legal and political matters, and intimate knowledge of life in the English court?”
However, like me, Pruitt questions the assumption that Christopher Marlowe, Francis Bacon, or Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford must have penned the plays due to superior education, travels, worldliness, or social standing. People of “Will’s” hometown of Stratford argue that such beliefs “reveal not only misguided snobbery but a striking disregard for one of the most outstanding qualities of the Bard’s extraordinary work — his imagination.”
I’ve experienced firsthand this kind of condescension; after all, I come from Alabama, but no, I don’t have a banjo on my knee. When I was in a graduate school class, and handling literary discussions extremely well on daily basis, my professor asked me where I had done my undergraduate work. When I said the University of Montevallo, just south of Birmingham, Alabama, his jaw visibly dropped. He mumbled something about never having heard of it, but that I was doing very well despite my humble beginnings.
As one famous Alabamian (Forrest Gump) once said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Likewise, clever is as clever does. It really doesn’t matter where you come from, or if you are born into a brilliant family, or a thriving business, or a state at the top of the IQ ratings. If you don’t make smart decisions and surround yourself with bright people, you are doomed.
On the contrary, if you can make order of the contrarieties in yourself, by giving up parts of yourself and learning self-mastery; if you can move to London and immerse yourself in the bubbling life of theatre; if you can converse with the learned minds you find around you, and yourself have an open one, then perhaps even if you are from Stratford-on-Avon, you can learn to write a pretty good play.