April 3, 2009

‘Labours Wonne’: the MS in the vase mystery

John Smythe      posted 1 Apr 2009, 07:22 AM / edited 1 Apr 2009, 07:23 AM

So far nine people have voted: 7 to break the vase; 2 not to. Perhaps you could explain your reasoning here.

This relates to the news item Labours Wonne – your help needed.

[The item:

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30 Mar 2009

LABOURS WONNE? – YOUR HELP NEEDED

[Note: 2/4/09: This was of course this year’s April Fools’ Day divertissement. Thanks to all who participated.-JS]

Wellington’s love affair with Shakespeare has won Theatreview a scoop involving an extraordinary discovery and an urgent request for our help.

Upper Hutt roading contractor ‘Warwick’ (not his real name) is wrestling with an unusual dilemma. He claims to be “somewhat related through the Barnard line on his mother’s side” to Sussana Hall (nee Shakespeare) who, six months before her birth, precipitated the marriage of an 18 year-old William to 26 year-old Anne Hathaway.

Warwick’s branch of the family (“distant cousins many times removed”) immigrated to New Zealand in the mid 1990s. One of the heirloom artefacts his parents chose to bring with them was a Venetian ‘vetro a fili’ glass vase, which ‘Warwick’s eccentric great aunt told him was given to William Shakespeare by a Venetian trader and passed on to his older daughter Sussana, who got most of his chattels on his death (including the best bed, leaving her mother Anne – famously – with only the second-best bed).

Someone was supposed to take the vase to an Antiques Roadshow in Warwickshire but there was “a stuff up” and it never happened. ‘Warwick’ used to think it was really ugly but now he thinks it has “a strange kind of beauty” in certain lights.

Anyway, the vase was sealed by a convex glass plug and just a couple of weeks ago, when ‘Warwick’s wife was cleaning it, it came loose (‘Warwick’ says she stood it in the sink and poured boiling water over it, and he thinks this melted the wax-like substance that held the plug in place). And it seems the vase has been hiding a roll of papers which cannot be extracted without probable damage to them, unless the vase is broken.

‘Warwick’ had a go with a set of kitchen tongs and a torch, attempting to extract the inside page of the roll. He gave up for fear of tearing it but thought he could just discern the words “Labours Wonne” and wonders whether it may be something to do with an election result.

Not knowing where to turn and wanting to deal with someone local, ‘Warwick’ Googled Shakespeare+Wellington in NZ. This took him to the VUW Summer Shakespeare site and a link to the Compleate Workes Festival … and soon he found himself at theatreview.org.nz – and so contacted me (the editor).

I suggested we put the story out and see what people think he should do.

If you wish to discuss this story, please use the Forum option.

Otherwise please vote Yes or No (below) on the following question: Should ‘Warwick’ break the Venetian vase in order to retrieve the manuscript?

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Welly Watch       posted 1 Apr 2009, 09:34 AM

What’s wrong with you people? I am the 8th person to vote NO – don’t break the vase! – and 11 people have votes YES! What? Break an artefact that could be priceless for some pamphlet about Labour winning an election. Are you mad?

Except the Labour Party in the UK was not formed until the early 1900s. And would ‘won’ have been spelt ‘wonne’ then? Do we know if this so-called manuscript was printed or hand-written?

John Smythe      posted 1 Apr 2009, 09:48 AM

Good question WW. I’ve had a torchlight peek at the trapped bundle of papers and it seems to me it is hand-written in black ink, by nib or quill. Each ‘s’ is long, like an ¦ without the cross-bar, which I have always related to Restoration Comedy, as in: “I will ¦educe you on the ¦ofa”. But I suppose it dates back to Shakespeare’s time too.

Do we have examples of Shakespeare’s handwriting? Can anyone point us to a website, perhaps?

Gavin Rutherford             posted 1 Apr 2009, 10:00 AM / edited 1 Apr 2009, 10:03 AM

I agree with Welly Watch (kinda). Accurate dating in cases such as this is very important and an eye must always be kept open.

martyn roberts posted 1 Apr 2009, 10:30 AM

Try the Large Hadron Collider for atomic dating (that is once it is working again).

John Smythe      posted 1 Apr 2009, 11:12 AM / edited 1 Apr 2009, 03:41 PM

11 votes YES, 10 votes NO – but hardly any postings on why you have voted that way. Please explain!

John Smythe      posted 1 Apr 2009, 12:04 PM

And on the stroke of noon it is 11 YES, 12 NO. This means we may never know if the vase contains a manuscript, and if so, of what. Is that a shame?

Robin Kerr           posted 1 Apr 2009, 01:05 PM

Ironic that a copy of Shakespeare’s follow up play, Loves Labour’s WONNE may have been LOST after all. Though in defense of the decision to preserve the vase, it may turn out to be just as important, if not more important an artifact to preserve. If this forum had been hosted on an antique vase website instead, they would surely be glad with this result. We’ve got 37 or so plays from the bard anyway, thats plenty enough. Sequels are always worse then the original (e.g. Die Hard II, Speed II, George Bush Jnr.) Billy probably wrote just wrote it for the money.

John Smythe      posted 1 Apr 2009, 01:17 PM / edited 1 Apr 2009, 02:41 PM

Yes indeed. Or maybe this was the play in which Shakespeare truly validated gay male love. And his wife found it, And fearing people would conclude that was why her husband spent so much time away from Stratford, she stuffed it in the vase his effeminate Venetian friend had given them.

Michael Smythe                posted 1 Apr 2009, 02:03 PM

There is a disturbing undercurrent to this forum. It suggests that theatrical types stand alongside accountants, engineers and lawyers in believing that only binary yes/no choices are possible. I am designer – I want to meet all needs rather than play protagonists off against each other. “Yebbit,” I hear you cry, “that’s where the drama lies!” To which I can only reply – do we not all crave resolution?

I propose the use of chopsticks to grip the inside of the “roll of papers” and turn it until it is tight enough to pull through the hole – after all, it must have been inserted through the self-same orifice.

Meanwhile the vessel, in its pre-ejaculant excitement, may quote Hamlet (Act 3, Sc2): “They fool me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.”

John Smythe      posted 1 Apr 2009, 03:48 PM / edited 1 Apr 2009, 04:05 PM

Now 16 say YES, break the vase (despite Michael’s ingenious suggestion for extracting the MS without damage to it or the vase) while 15 say NO (despite Robin’s amazing assertion that this could be the long lost MS for Shakespeare’s LOVES LABOURS WONNE!)

I’m wondering where to go from here. Perhaps as people start coming on line from other parts of the world we will get some clearer advice.  Feel free to send this link to anyone you know in other climes: https://www.theatreview.org.nz/news/news.php?id=317

John Smythe      posted 2 Apr 2009, 07:49 AM

Final count: 17 YES; 15 NO. Thank you to all who played the game!

Michael Wray    posted 3 Apr 2009, 09:33 AM

I would have suggested, had I been in time to influence the “decision”, that the world has many antique vases but no copies of the lost play…. so take the chance and break the vase.

You could insure it first, wait six months and then if the scroll turns out to be useless get Van West and Munter to do a break-in. It won’t replace the vase, but the payout will allow Warwick to console himself in style!