Bonus Features

Kitchener, ON -- The Stratford Festival Artifacts

Valerie: Ellen is an archivist assistant at the Stratford Festival and has brought in a couple of their real treasures. Tell me about this book.

Curator: Well, this is Shakespeare’s Fourth Folio, printed in 1685.

Valerie: What does Fourth Folio mean – is that fourth edition?

Curator: It’s fourth edition, the first one being printed in 1623, it was seven years after Shakespeare’s death. His friends put the first edition together. And then this would be the fourth printing of it, and the last of the folios.

Valerie: And tell me, what plays are in that one?

Curator: And this one has an addition of seven plays and the only one that can be attributed to Shakespeare is Pericles, Prince of Tyre. So we have a number of other plays here that…

Valerie: Aren’t even Shakespeare plays?

Curator: They’re not even Shakespeare plays although I believe Sir John Oldcastle is Falstaff but (laughs) but they’re not written by Shakespeare.

Valerie: And the likeness is the classic one.

Curator: Yes, it’s the one most closely associated with Shakespeare. By the time the Fourth Folio was printed it had started to degrade a bit. This print here was actually, is actually an artist’s proof from the First Folio, the 1623 edition.

Valerie: So it’s in a little better condition.

Curator: Well, it’s much older and we’re kind of assuming more valuable.

Valerie: Now this isn’t quite as old but it’s nonetheless incredibly valuable and that’s Alec Guiness’ script for Richard the Third which he played in the very first Shakespearean Festival. July to August 1953.

Curator: And it was actually extended two weeks. This was gifted to the Archives by the son and daughter of one of the founding members of the Board of Directors.

Valerie: So it’s got him underlining the script. “Now is the winter of our discontent… “ Isn’t that wonderful? Memorizing his lines.

Curator: On the cover there he even put a bit of his rehearsal schedule.

Valerie: This is a wonderful piece. You’ve got some pictures of…

Curator: Yes. Alec Guiness in his robes there and then he’s with Amelia Hall who played Lady Ann and she was the very first woman on the Festival stage.

Valerie: That’s wonderful. Thank you so much for bringing them in.

Curator: OK. Thank you.

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