By Richard Joyrich
The Oberon Shakespeare Study Group was founded by Richard Joyrich and Barbara Burris in 1999 and meets monthly to study and sponsor programs for members and outreach to a wider audience. Until the onset of the plague [COVID-19] pandemic, which closed theaters and many gathering places, we met at a local library. We now conduct our monthly meetings via Zoom.
We were once a group with 40-50 people on our list, although only 12-15 would usually show up for our meetings.
Luckily we still have other major contributors to the Oxford movement, and the Authorship Inquiry in general, active in our group, including [but not limited to] Barbara Burris, Linda Theil, and Tom Townsend.
After the “defection” of Tom Townsend and his wife Joy from Michigan to Washington state we kept in contact with him and, with the advent of Covid and the need for meeting by Zoom, we have now teamed up with the Seattle Shakespeare Oxford Society to host a combined zoom meeting every month. This has instantly brought us over 20 new members, most of whom join the online meeting each month.
Sadly, we have recently lost members to illness and death, including such luminaries as Thomas Hunter, Ron Halstead, Reynaldo Perez, and George Hunter, all of whom have contributed presentations or papers for the Shakespeare Oxford Society, Shakespeare Fellowship, or Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship.
A quick word on our name, Oberon. It was initially proposed by a former member, who alas has dropped off our roster (by his request). It seems like he always liked the character Oberon from Midsummer Night’s Dream and we agreed to the name.
It was about a year later when we discovered that the first Earl of Oxford was Aubrey III deVere (created in 1141 by Empress Matilda), and that the name was also that of the second, tenth, and 20th Earl (of the first creation) and that the name Oberon is a cognate of Aubrey [by way of Auberich).
So it pleases us that we are named (in a way) for two ancestors of Edward deVere, our beloved author.
Our Oberon group has always been a very social group and we have in the past traveled to nearby Stratford, Ontario to see the wonderful Shakespearean productions there. We have also attended many local theaters and, for a period of about three years, attended and participated in the so-called Michigan Shakespeare Festival held in Jackson, Michigan.
Both Tom Hunter and I gave presentations there for their “preshow” talks until the artistic director changed and they started putting up signs to the effect that “the views of our speaker do not necessarily reflect the views of the Festival”.
Before that time, we were regularly invited to have lunch with the former Artistic Director of the Festival who, despite being a Stratfordian and an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, welcomed our ideas and enjoyed our company.
Other highlights of our Oberon history include:
- A talk by Derran Charlton of England (now sadly deceased) in 2000
- A talk by Mark Rylance when he was in Ann Arbor in 2003, touring his Globe production of Twelfth Night. In fact, Mark turned down a request for him to speak to a group from the University of Michigan so he could speak with us.
- In 2003 we also hosted Sarah Smith, author of Chasing Shakespeares.
- In 2006, the Oberon group successfully hosted the 2006 Second Annual Joint SOS/SF Conference in Ann Arbor, at which time we were treated to a talk by Patrick Stewart, who was playing Prospero and Anthony in productions of The Tempest and Anthony and Cleopatra during a “residency” of the RSC being held at the time of our conference. The conference registration including tickets for these productions.
- In 2011, Thomas Hunter and others of our group participated in on campus discussions of the film Anonymous in Ann Arbor when Roland Emmerich and writer John Orloff visited the University of Michigan to promote the film.
During most of our meetings we try to have someone give us a short presentation on current research on the Authorship Inquiry, although for the most part our discussion during our meetings is quite informal and free ranging. They are for this reason very enjoyable.
Since 2007 we have maintained a blog (primarily edited by Linda Theil) at http://oberonshakespearestudygroup.blogspot.com.
I hope that we can go back to live meetings of the Oberon group in the future, but I also think I would want to continue with online meetings so that we can enjoy the company and academic resources of the Seattle group and other non-local scholars.
For further information, contact us.
