A Rose by Any Other Name – Smock Alley – Review

While our host of the evening, Rosemary Loughlin, admits to being a conspiracy theorist, she is a relatively harmless one. There are those that rant about what the 5G network is capable of or fight against vaccines, thinking the government are injecting us with nanobots. Rosemary is in quite a different league to these individuals, as her conspiracy centres on who wrote the plays and sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare. Was it William, a man with a simple education who never travelled outside of the United Kingdom? Rosemary thinks not, after watching a Sky Arts documentary on the subject, she thinks the true identity of the writer is 16th Century poet and courtier Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford.

The stage of the Boys’ School in Smock Alley is relatively simple. There is an easel on one side of the stage, with a familiar image of Shakespeare. At the centre of the stage, there is a chair and a table, with a brown leather satchel in front of them. These simple accoutrements are all Rosemary needs to take us on this journey.

It is quite a personal tale. We hear about Rosemary’s early life with her father reading the sonnets. We hear about her years in secondary school, where her true love was Patrick Kavanagh and W.B. Yeats. It was only later she discovered Shakespeare. She decided to take an acting class, where she studied the Bard of Avon’s works, performing many of his famous speeches and monologues.

Rosemary uses photos and images projected onto the back wall of the set to help with her story. The focus of the later part of the piece is on her travels to try to discover more about de Vere, to help back up her conviction. While there are no major revelations, she does find some interesting paintings, place names and other facts to confirm her version of events.

What really draws the audience into Rosemary’s tale is her honesty. It feels like you’re listening to a friend tell you about her life and experiences. The piece is possibly a little too long, at almost two hours including the interval and it could do with some simple editing to tighten the script. Despite this, the sincerity in Rosemary’s voice would be hard to fake and you can tell she cares deeply about her subject matter. No matter who wrote the words, the beauty of the prose and poetry remains unaltered.

WRITTEN BY Rosemary Loughlin
DIRECTED BY Andrew Deering
LIGHTING DESIGN BY Caroline Norris
SET DESIGN BY Rosemary Loughlin
COSTUME DESIGN BY Rosemary Loughlin
CAST Rosemary Loughlin