Shakespeare and the Countess: The Battle That Gave Birth to the Globe

While Shakespeare serves as this book’s headline attraction, it is the ambitious, crafty, and eagerly litigious Elizabeth Russell who takes center stage in this power struggle-filled Elizabethan drama. Shakespeare scholar Laoutaris (Shakespearean Maternities) clearly respects Russell’s ability to outmaneuver her well-heeled enemies as he fleshes out her decades of property acquisitions and continual pressure on high-ranking members of her extended Cecil and Bacon families. The self-proclaimed countess threatened Shakespeare’s livelihood with her suit against “London’s first permanent playhouse, the Theatre,” near her home, but her opposition inadvertently resulted in the creation of the famous Globe Theatre, which secured the Bard’s legacy. While Russell’s voice is heard strongly through letters and legal documents, Shakespeare’s opinion on the war over the Blackfriars property appears largely in the book’s last third, primarily through Laoutaris’s reading of his plays. That results in some tenuous threads—though others are much firmer—linking his opponents to various characters, including the notable Falstaff. As Laoutaris shows, Russell—a “staunch Puritan,” funerary monument designer, and the only female sheriff in Elizabethan England—was worthy of starring in a Shakespearean drama. 16 pages b&w illus. [em](June) [/em]