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1623 collection a treasure for Shakespeare fans
Ashland, Aug 06: In a small theater anteroom, enclosed in a custom-built case and watched over by surveillance video and electronic alarm, lies a relic that connects the Oregon Shakespeare Festival through time almost to the bard himself.
Ashland, Aug 06: In a small theater anteroom, enclosed in a custom-built case and watched over by surveillance video and electronic alarm, lies a relic that connects the Oregon Shakespeare Festival through time almost to the bard himself.
Formally titled "Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies," it is popularly known as a First Folio, an original copy of what is considered by many scholars to be the greatest book in English literature, and a touchstone of almost religious significance to those who love Shakespeare.
It's here for the summer, on loan from Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, who has been attending plays at the festival since he was a teenager.
"When I first saw it, I had this sense of remarkable power that's come into this document," said Paul Nicholson, the festival's executive director. "It's 380 years old. It's in extraordinary condition. And it's the bedrock of everything we do. "Without that document, this organization would not exist. The town of Ashland would not be what it is. And there are millions of people in this world that would be much poorer (culturally) than they are today."
Published in 1623 by fellow actors seven years after Shakespeare's death, it marks the first appearance in print of 18 of his plays, plus 18 others that had already been printed individually, and includes an engraving of the portrait by which the world has come to know him.
This copy, once owned by the grand niece of 17th-century English poet and playwright John Dryden, contains 908 pages printed in double columns, and is bound in brown calfskin dating to the early 18th or late 17th century.
"A book is like a genie in a bottle," he said. "When you rub the bottle, the genie comes out and transforms your life. Here, whoever owned it through the centuries didn't get the genie out very much. They were not moved too much by what Shakespeare wrote. They were keeping it as an artifact." That was not always the case. One of the copies at the Folger is marked by a child's stick-figure drawings dating from the 18th century, said Ziegler.
"In 1729, it wasn't an icon yet," she said. "It was just a big book around the house."
Not so today. Standing near the festival box office with his family trying to sell extra tickets, Lloyd Brass of Eugene, Oregon, who makes training videos, compared the First Folio to an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.
"The Declaration of Independence is not the most important thing. The most important thing is the country based on it. But the original document is still a cool thing," Brass said. "They should be selling tickets for it. There would be a line out the door." There is no daily ticket to view the First Folio, but the festival has scheduled several lectures in its presence, and hopes to have it back each year, said Nicholson.
When Kraft was allowed to examine Allen's copy in an anteroom of the New Theatre, he had to don cotton gloves while festival archivist Kathleen F. Leary and security guards stood by. Though he was thrilled to be a glove's thickness from touching a document produced by Shakespeare's contemporaries, Kraft said it was nothing like the thrill he gets from the words themselves. He was particularly eager to see a tiny wormhole, where an immature moth or beetle ate its way in from the last page, within the white margin next to the spine.
"The tiny worm eats its way all the way through `Cymboline,' which is pretty indigestible anyway," said Kraft. "It got into about a third of `Antony and Cleopatra.'
"After it had eaten Shakespeare, it felt a change coming over it and it turned into a pupa. Then it came out as an adult insect. "My metaphor is: We do this. We eat Shakespeare. We make it part of ourselves, part of our soul. And we are transformed."
Bureau Report
Formally titled "Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies," it is popularly known as a First Folio, an original copy of what is considered by many scholars to be the greatest book in English literature, and a touchstone of almost religious significance to those who love Shakespeare.
It's here for the summer, on loan from Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, who has been attending plays at the festival since he was a teenager.
"When I first saw it, I had this sense of remarkable power that's come into this document," said Paul Nicholson, the festival's executive director. "It's 380 years old. It's in extraordinary condition. And it's the bedrock of everything we do. "Without that document, this organization would not exist. The town of Ashland would not be what it is. And there are millions of people in this world that would be much poorer (culturally) than they are today."
Published in 1623 by fellow actors seven years after Shakespeare's death, it marks the first appearance in print of 18 of his plays, plus 18 others that had already been printed individually, and includes an engraving of the portrait by which the world has come to know him.
This copy, once owned by the grand niece of 17th-century English poet and playwright John Dryden, contains 908 pages printed in double columns, and is bound in brown calfskin dating to the early 18th or late 17th century.
"A book is like a genie in a bottle," he said. "When you rub the bottle, the genie comes out and transforms your life. Here, whoever owned it through the centuries didn't get the genie out very much. They were not moved too much by what Shakespeare wrote. They were keeping it as an artifact." That was not always the case. One of the copies at the Folger is marked by a child's stick-figure drawings dating from the 18th century, said Ziegler.
"In 1729, it wasn't an icon yet," she said. "It was just a big book around the house."
Not so today. Standing near the festival box office with his family trying to sell extra tickets, Lloyd Brass of Eugene, Oregon, who makes training videos, compared the First Folio to an original copy of the Declaration of Independence.
"The Declaration of Independence is not the most important thing. The most important thing is the country based on it. But the original document is still a cool thing," Brass said. "They should be selling tickets for it. There would be a line out the door." There is no daily ticket to view the First Folio, but the festival has scheduled several lectures in its presence, and hopes to have it back each year, said Nicholson.
When Kraft was allowed to examine Allen's copy in an anteroom of the New Theatre, he had to don cotton gloves while festival archivist Kathleen F. Leary and security guards stood by. Though he was thrilled to be a glove's thickness from touching a document produced by Shakespeare's contemporaries, Kraft said it was nothing like the thrill he gets from the words themselves. He was particularly eager to see a tiny wormhole, where an immature moth or beetle ate its way in from the last page, within the white margin next to the spine.
"The tiny worm eats its way all the way through `Cymboline,' which is pretty indigestible anyway," said Kraft. "It got into about a third of `Antony and Cleopatra.'
"After it had eaten Shakespeare, it felt a change coming over it and it turned into a pupa. Then it came out as an adult insect. "My metaphor is: We do this. We eat Shakespeare. We make it part of ourselves, part of our soul. And we are transformed."
Bureau Report