Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt has teamed with playwright Charles L. Mee to write a new work inspired by Shakespeare’s lost play “Cardenio.” “Cardenio” was actually co-written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher and was based on an episode in the novel “Don Quixote” by Cervantes. The 18th century Shakespeare editor Lewis Theobald claimed to have several copies of “Cardenio” which he modified into the play “Double Falsehood, or the Distressed Lovers.” Now, with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Greenblatt and Mee have created a contemporary version of the story set in modern times. This new version of “Cardenio” will play at the American Repertory Theatre (ART) in Cambridge, MA from May 10 - June 8.
According to a press release by the American Repertory Theater, “Mee and Greenblatt have invented what Shakespeare might have written if he lived in the twenty-first century.” The contemporary version is set set at a wedding party on the terrace of a villa in the Umbrian hills. Before Anselmo gets married, he asks his friend Will to test his bride’s devotion by trying to seduce her. That’s when the play takes a modern twist. Anselmo’s parents, both actors, arrive with a lost Shakespearean play in their possession and announce they will produce it as part of the wedding festivities.
The American Repertory Theatre “Cardenio” is not the only version of the play that Greenblatt has helped create. “The Christian Science Monitor” reports that, “Using the Mellon funds, he has also commissioned theater companies from around the world to combine the Cervantes novel with the extant script from the 18th century, but then to adapt “Cardenio” in ways that reflect their own cultures. So far, he’s traveled to see a “Motorcycle Don Quixote” in Japan and a Bengali version in India that incorporated the topic of arranged marriages.”
Also check out:
American Repertory Theatre Website - Cardenio Production Page
American Repertory Theatre Blog About Cardenio
This is not the first time someone has undertaken a reconstruction of “Cardenio.” Gary Taylor, co-editor of the Oxford edition of the complete works of Shakespeare, put together his own reconstruction of “Cardenio” two years ago using “Double Falsehood, or the Distressed Lovers” and the 1612 translation of “Don Quixote.”
You can read the March, 2006 “New York Times” article about Taylor’s reconstruction here.
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