Bard’s Beginnings

Whilst merrily watching Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman’s critically acclaimed “Shakespeare in Love” over the holiday weekend, methinks I experienced something akin to a midsummer night’s dream, for the film had an air of--how do I say this--familiarity?

Far be it from me to create much ado about nothing, still I couldn’t help but notice striking similarities between it and a 20-year-old BBC-TV series, “Will Shakespeare: The Untold Story,” which to my knowledge never aired in the United States. This production featured a young Shakespeare (played by Tim Curry) struggling as a playwright at the Rose Theatre and spending a great deal of time in taverns and in the company of prostitutes, when he meets and falls in love with a noblewoman--who, interestingly, has disguised herself as a young man in order to attend the theater.

In this version she is “Mary Fleminge” and Shakespeare gazes at her, lovestruck, while performing in his play “Romeo and Juliet.” They are so much in love that they engage in trysts even when she is still disguised as a man. Shakespeare’s love for her inspires him to write and it is intimated that she is the mysterious “Dark Lady” of his sonnets.

By my troth, while it is not my intent to stir up a tempest, I thought the similarities were worth noting.

VALERIE E. WEICH

Pasadena