Twain-inspired Video by Jan Kather finalist for Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship Contest

Click here to see the “Mark Twain Jar: Who Wrote Shakespeare?” Project and Vote!

Jan Kather talks about her video being selected as a finalist in the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship’s 2019 Video Contest

Mark Twain is among a long list of skeptics who pondered the age old question, “Who wrote Shakespeare?” In his book Is Shakespeare Dead? he humorously makes the case for the improbability of a young man from Stratford having the ability to write the plays and poems considered to be the greatest literature ever written in the English language. 

It was with this knowledge that I decided to enter the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship‘s 2019 video contest, repurposing some footage that was previously recorded for a 2017 collaborative video project with fellow artists Daniel Reidy, Wendy Taylor and Aaron Kather. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my two minute video “Mark Twain Jar: Who Wrote Shakespeare?” made the cut, and is now in an online competition along with seven other finalists. 

With their permission, I re-conceptualized and edited our original, collaborative “Mark Twain’s Ghost” videos to address the “Who Wrote Shakespeare” video contest question. I drew my material from three videos that were roughly edited from outtakes by Aaron, Wendy and myself. This original source material emerged from our multiple points of view, with extemporaneous dialogue and staging by Dan as ghost acquirer, interrogator and releaser. I re-interpreted Aaron’s title pun “MT Jar” (empty jar) to suggest the possible “jar,” or shock and annoyance one feels when reading Twain’s merciless lampooning of bardolatry. 

I also wanted to use the MT pun itself, as homage to Shakepeare’s unrivaled ability at wordplay. By having Twain’s ghost speak abridged quotes from Chapter XI of Is Shakespeare Dead?, I intended to create an ambiguous denouement:

Am I trying to convince anybody that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare’s Works?  Ah, now, what do you take me for?  Would I be so soft as that…? It would grieve me to know that any one could think so injuriously of me….I haven’t any idea that Shakespeare will have to vacate his pedestal this side of the year 2209.  Disbelief in him cannot come swiftly, disbelief … is a very slow process.

If I have been successful, a skeptic will think the video supports their ideas. Simultaneously, a believer will think I agree with them. The ineffable answer has “melted into air, into thin air” as Twain’s ghost is released at his gravesite. 

For the most part, Twain’s Is Shakespeare Dead? reads like a skeptic’s bible until reaching Chapter XI. I like to think at this point in his exposé, Twain was expressing some misgivings about his disbelief that a young boy from the English countryside could have such an elegant way with words, fearfully imagining that in the future, people would similarly doubt that he alone, a young man born in Hannibal, could ever be considered America’s greatest writer. 

An interesting twist to this story was on the day I received notice about my video making it to the finals, I discovered the 2019 Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship Conference would take place at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, on October 17-20. Twain’s Is Shakespeare Dead? will be performed by Keir Cutler, with “tours of the inimitable Mark Twain House.” Focusing on Twain’s words in my video seems particularly fitting for this year’s conference setting.

The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship Video Contest Winners will be selected by the number of votes received by online voting. If you are so inclined, watch all eight videos and weigh in at this link between August 20 – October 10. Maybe Mark Twain Jar: Who Wrote Shakespeare will be your favorite?

Click here to see the “Mark Twain Jar: Who Wrote Shakespeare?” Project and Vote!