Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

Michael Robin Browne 1941-2024  Oberon Shakespeare Study Group meeting Bloomfield Hills Library Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, February 9, 2019 by Linda Theil Our dear friend and longtime Oberon colleague Robin Browne passed away March 28, 2024 after a brave fight with longstanding illness. A memorial service to honor  him will be held on July 14, 2024 at Christ Church Cranbrook, 470 Church Road, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; and will be followed by a recption at his home. A tribute to  his life can be viewed at Michael Robin Browne on Legacy. To honor Robin's memory, Oberon will make a contribution to the church garden fund, as was his wish. Oberon chairperson Richard Joyrich shares his tribute to our beloved friend and colleague, Robin Browne: Robin has been a part of the Oberon Shakespeare Study Group almost from the beginning. He very rarely missed one of our meetings in various libraries in the past, and always had much to contribute. Although not a strict Oxfordian -- h...

  Screenwriter John Orloff and actor Rhys Ifans featured on  title card of today's  Don't Quill the Messenger podcast by Linda Theil In a long reminiscence of Rolland Emmerich's 2011 film Anonymous,  screenwriter John Orloff recalled Robert (sic) Shapiro as an "asshole". Twice. In the Oct 20, 2023 "Not so Anonymous" episode of his anti-Stratfordian  Don't Quill the Messenger podcast, host Steven Sabel spoke to Orloff for over an hour about the making of Emmerich's epic flop that brought the Shakespeare authorship question to international prominence. (See:  "Anonymous Opens . . ." , et al on Oberon  weblog.) At time-mark 38:30 during a discussion of the Anonymous post-release furor, Orloff opined regarding Shakespearean scholar James Shapiro -- although Orloff did Shapiro the ultimate disrespect of not remembering his first name correctly: "Robert (sic) Shapiro! Oof, that guy! . . . he's such a dishonest broker. Above anythin...

by Linda Theil When asked by an interviewer why all the experts disagree with her on the legitimacy of the Shakespeare authorship question, journalist and author Elizabeth Winkler  calmly replied, "You've asked the wrong experts." * With that simple declaration Winkler exploded the topic of Shakespearean authorship forever. Anti-Stratfordians need no smoking gun, no convincing narrative, no reason who, how, when, or why because within the works lies the unassailable argument: Shakespeare's knowledge. Ask the lawyers. Ask the psychologists. Ask the librarians. Ask the historians. Ask the dramaturges. Ask the mathematicians. Ask the Greek scholars. Ask the physicists. Ask the astronomers. Ask the courtiers. Ask the bibliophiles. Ask the Italians. Ask the French. Ask the Russians. Ask the English. Ask everyone. Current academic agreement on a bevy of Shakespearean collaborators springs from an unspoken awareness of how much assistance the Stratfordian presumptive would h...

Our dearly loved friend Mara Radzvickas 1941-2023 Oberons are saddened by the loss of our fellow Oberon,  Mara Radzvickas . Mara was a beautiful, brilliant, and delightful friend; we will not know her like again. A funeral mass will be held May 26, 2023 at St. Regis Church in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Fellow Oberon member Tom Townsend remembers Mara here.  by Tom Townsend Our wonderful friend, Marilyn “Mara” Radzvickas, passed away April 14, 2023. She was a dynamic and energetic woman all her life. Mara came to work in the Detroit area from Chicago. She loved her work at the agency: She was the Associated Director of Consumer Insights for a large advertising agency. Mara was loved by all her work associates, clients, and suppliers. In fact, there were few, if any, who were ‘simply neutral’ about Mara. As her friend, I enjoyed working with Mara. We both worked in an agency research department where we had a great working relationship and were highly productive. Mara read cons...

Elizabeth Winkler presenting at Shakespearean Authorship Trust virtual event April 22, 2023 by Linda Theil In her new book, Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature , Elizabeth Winkler presents a smart, witty, and eminently readable account of one woman's journey through the wonderful world of Stratfordian bullshit. Winkler's new book published by Simon & Schuster, 2023 According to her publisher: "Elizabeth Winkler is a journalist and book critic whose work has appeared in  The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement , and  The Economist,  among other publications. She received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University and her master’s in English literature from Stanford University. Her essay “Was Shakespeare a Woman?”, first published in  The Atlantic , was selected for  The Best American Essays 2020.  She lives in Washington, DC." I'v...

 by Linda Theil Frank Lawler, author of Behind the Mask of William Shakespeare In September, Oberon Zoom member Frank Lawler released Behind the Mask of William Shakespeare , his new translation and annotation of Abel Lefranc's Sous le Masque de William Shakespeare under the imprint of James Warren's Veritas Publications, LLC. Lawler generously agreed to share his thoughts about the work with Oberon readers. Oberon: What drew you to this enormous project? Lawler: Abel Lefranc's two-volume Sous le Masque de William Shakespeare was published in 1918 and 1919. The man was a brilliant scholar of literary history who, as a Frenchman, wasn't burdened with the entrenched English hagiography of the man from Stratford. A world-renowned expert on Moliere and Rabelais, he had academic credentials rivaling those of the greatest of the orthodox bardologists of the early Twentieth Century. Lefranc, however, thought the Stratfordian myth was ludicrous. Having spent most of his caree...

by Linda Theil Oberon East/West colleague Dr. Michael Delahoyde , professor of English and Humanities at Washington State University, self-published an Oxfordian-perspective edition of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in August. Twelfth Night is his second Oxfordian edition, after publishing his Oxfordian edition of Anthony and Cleopatra in 2015. He talked with us about his work recently. Oberon: How long have you been working on this edition? Could you tell about your process and research? Delahoyde: I began work on this edition shortly after completing  Anthony and Cleopatra , typing the play itself eight years ago and then puttering with it by reading every bit of research published that I could absorb, especially everything put forth by Oxfordians from Looney onwards, until Covid gave me the time and imprisonment; then it was full steam ahead. Oberon: Do you have a favorite note from this edition? Delahoyde: My favorite bit — from the intro, not a particular note: The most comp...