The Droeshout Portrait: How Shakespeare Is Born?

At the beginning, there was a folio, and a portrait. The portrait of Droeshout. And next? The Shakespeare phenomenon. It’s late night. William Shakespeare, who has just dipped his quill in ink, is about to write his next play. Perhaps Hamlet? That’s the way it must have happened… or not? Shakespeare might not have been sitting at his table but on the bank of the Thames, or in a friend’s garden… And what if he hadn’t even quit Stratford, and all the works attributed to him were written by other authors? Edward de Vere? The Queen? Or a swan?
Students of the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, guided by Patrick Sims, create a puppet show inspired by the greatest personality of the world’s drama theatre, and by the most famous painting whose ambiguity opens the way for our imagination.

The performance was coproduced by TWB, the French ensemble Les Antliaclastes, the Czech Centre Paris and the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts.