Publisher Description

Set in the heat and dust of Andalusia in seventeenth-century Spain, Cardenio is the story of a friendship betrayed, with all the elements of a thriller: disguise, dishonour and deceit.A woman is seduced, a bride is forced to the altar, and a man runs mad among the mountains of the Sierra Morena.The history of the play is every bit as thrilling, and this text is the result of a masterful act of literary archaeology by the Royal Shakespeare Company's Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran, to re-imagine a previously lost play by Shakespeare. Based on an episode in Cervantes' Don Quixote, the play known as Cardenio by Shakespeare and John Fletcher was performed at court in 1612. A copy of their collaboration has never been found; however, it is claimed that Double Falshood by Lewis Theobald is an eighteenth-century adaptation of it.Since Theobald's play misses out some crucial scenes in the plot, Doran has turned to the Cervantes original to supply the missing episodes, using the original English translation by Thomas Shelton (1612) that Fletcher and Shakespeare must themselves have read.Cardenio re-opened the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's fiftieth birthday season in 2011.'An extraordinary and theatrically powerful piece... the play works beautifully'— Guardian

Author Biography

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English poet and playwright of some renown.John Fletcher (1579–1625) was a Jacobean playwright who wrote prolifically for London's theatres for at least 20 years, and followed William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men.Gregory Doran is a leading theatre director, described by the Sunday Times as 'one of the great Shakespeareans of his generation'. He was Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company for ten years, from 2012 until 2022.Doran directed his first RSC production in 1992, and went on to direct most of the Shakespearean canon. Notable RSC productions include Macbeth starring Antony Sher, Hamlet starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart, and Julius Caesar with an all black British cast.Publications include The Shakespeare Almanac, Shakespeare's Lost Play: In Search of Cardenio and Woza Shakespeare!In 2002 he won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement of the Year and in June 2012 he was awarded the Sam Wanamaker Award by the Globe Theatre, in recognition of his work in increasing the understanding and enjoyment of Shakespeare.He stepped down from his position as Artistic Director of the RSC in April 2022, though he remains with the company as Artistic Director Emeritus.Antonio Alamo is a Spanish writer. He was appointed director of the Lope de Vega Theatre in Seville in 2004.

Review

'An extraordinary and theatrically powerful piece... the play works beautifully' * Guardian *

Review Quote

'an extraordinary and theatrically powerful piece... the play works beautifully'

Details