The Dark Lady of the Sonnets - Play by George Bernard Shaw - Intro by the Author!

A 1910 short comedy by George Bernard Shaw. Introduced by the author! William Shakespeare, intending to meet the "Dark Lady", accidentally encounters Queen Elizabeth I and attempts to persuade her to create a national theatre. The play was written as part of a campaign to create a "Shakespeare National Theatre" by 1916.

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In 1902, a London Shakespeare League was founded to develop a Shakespeare National Theatre, aspiring to achieve this by the impending tricentenary in 1916 of Shakespeare's death. Shaw's play was written for the campaign. Two years later in 1913 it purchased land for a theatre in Bloomsbury. The plan for a theatre by 1916 eventually failed because of the outbreak of World War I.

The play refers to the "dark lady", who is the addressee of Shakespeare's sonnets 127 to 152, so-called because her hair and her eyes are said to be of a dark colour. In the sonnets, the poet is apparently involved in a sexual relationship with the Lady, but it is implied that she is unfaithful to him, perhaps with the "Fair Youth", the young man who is the addressee of most of the other sonnets. Many attempts have been made to identify the "Dark Lady" and "Fair Youth" with historical personalities. At the time Shaw's play was written, a favoured candidate for the Lady was Mary Fitton (this identification had been made by Shaw's friend Thomas Tyler but later dropped) and for the Youth was William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, who is known to have had an affair with Fitton. In the play the Lady is referred to by name as "Mary", and there is a reference to Pembroke having met the Lady the previous night ("Last night he stood here on your errand, and in your shoes"). (Wikipedia)

Originally Broadcast 4/22/1938

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