Theater review: ‘The Beard of Avon’

Authorship debate makes a stage delight

By ERIC BARTELS

The Portland Tribune, Jan 25, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Will Shakespeare (Darius Pierce, left) and Edward De Vere (Brent Harris) cook up a plot sure to drive future academics insane.

©Owen Carey

After several hundred years, the debate will not die.

Did William Shakespeare really write the illustrious canon attributed to him? While most believe the glove-maker’s son from Stratford is indeed the authentic item, scholars have been driven to madness insisting that others penned the works that bear his name.

Even as the dispute steps into the spotlight in Amy Freed’s superb comedy at Portland Center Stage, it also becomes academic. What matters is the riveting tale and flawless stagecraft that make this the best ensemble piece seen in Portland this season.

The play will alternate weeks and even nights with “Twelfth Night,” which opens tonight.

The brightest star in this seamless production is Edward De Vere (Brent Harris), the 17th Earl of Oxford, regarded by some as the real Bard. Events are set in motion when the swashbuckling but disaffected aristocrat decides to see his cache of manuscripts performed on stage, a place then considered beneath those of high station.

Enter Will Shakespeare, an unaccomplished dreamer who’s left his wife back in Stratford to take a job as a bit player, thereby gaining access to the London theater world.

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