Virginia Beach Museum brings together Shipwrecks and Shakespeare

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A new exhibit at the Old Coast Guard Station promotes the widely accepted theory that one of William Shakespeare’s last plays, “The Tempest,” was partly inspired by the wreck of a ship bound for Jamestown in 1609.  The exhibit titled, “The Tempest: Storms, Shipwrecks & Shakespeare,” was developed as part of a statewide initiative to celebrate Shakespeare during the 400th anniversary year of his death.

While attending a museum conference in 2015, Kathryn Fisher, executive director of the Old Coast Guard Station museum, heard about the Virginia Shakespeare Initiative.  The effort called for groups and organizations statewide to host Shakespeare-related events in 2016.

“I wondered how the Coast Guard museum could be involved, but I knew there had to be a connection,” Fisher said.

Fisher did some research and found that Shakespeare used storms and shipwrecks in many of his plays.  One play in particular, “The Tempest,” revolves around a shipwreck that many historians and scholars believe is based on the real-life wreck of the Sea Venture.

The Sea Venture was the lead ship of the “Third Supply” convoy sent by the Virginia Company of London in 1609 to the colony of Jamestown, which had struggled since being founded in 1607.  About a week before its scheduled arrival, the ship wrecked during a hurricane off the coast of Bermuda.

Miraculously, all 153 passengers survived and lived on Bermuda for almost a year.  They built two new ships and sailed on to Jamestown in May 1610, eventually saving the Jamestown settlement after the harsh winter of 1609-1610 known as the “starving time.”

In the fall of 1610, at least three written accounts of the Sea Venture ordeal were circulated in London, where Shakespeare was an established playwright.  Most of his plays were written or first performed between the late 1580s and the early 1610s.

The first performance of “The Tempest” on record was Nov. 1, 1611.  Many historians and scholars who have compared the play to written accounts of the Sea Venture wreck point to striking similarities in plot, language and imagery.

Fisher said the most obvious similarities are found in a report by William Strachey, who was also a writer and probably traveled in the same circles as Shakespeare.

“You can almost pick scene for scene from Strachey’s account into parts of ‘The Tempest’,” Fisher said.

The exhibit at the Old Coast Guard Station differs from most of the year’s Shakespeare-related events, according to Kathryn Lebert of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, one of four partner organizations in the Virginia Shakespeare Initiative.  The other three are the Virginia Shakespeare Center in Staunton, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and Washington and Lee University.

“Most events have involved the production of plays,” Lebert said.  “The Coast Guard museum exhibit is unique because it focuses on local history and finding a connection.”

“The Tempest: Storms, Shipwrecks & Shakespeare,” is on display at the Old Coast Guard Station museum till 23rd, October.

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Source: pilotonline