Shakespeare Festival offers puppet workshop
The multi-week Lewes Public Library Shakespeare Festival continues through week. On April 9, actors Suzanne Savoy and David Logan Rankin presented William Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis” puppetry workshop and performance.
The poem is considered the first published work by Shakespeare in 1593. Savoy noted that Shakespeare wrote the poem during a time of plague in London when theaters were shut down. He also made more money from the poem than any other of his many works, she said.
The pair worked for the New York City Shakespeare Project, giving outdoor performances in the 1990s and early 2000s. During the April 9 workshop, attendees were instructed how to manipulate the large puppets, made by Savoy 20 years ago.
In the poem, Venus, the goddess of love, is smitten by the much younger Adonis, who shows no interest in her advances, and is more interested in hunting. She attempts to seduce the teenager; however, Adonis is gored to death by a boar on a hunting trip, as Venus foresaw in a dream. Distraught by his death, she decrees love will forever be mixed with fear, suspicion and sadness and love will be "fickle, false and full of fraud.”
The festival continues with An Evening with Delaware Shakespeare, 7 p.m., Monday, April 18, and a film screening of “The Tempest” at 7 p.m., Wednesday, April 20. Both events take place at the Lewes library.
The festival concludes with four programs Sunday, April 24, relating to “Romeo and Juliet,” with a performance by the Classic Theatre of Maryland at 2 p.m. at Cape Henlopen High School.
Go to tinyurl.com/ShakeItUp2022 for more information and registration information.
