Bardolotry: the cultural materialist’s guide to Stratford-upon-Avon

In the spring of 1936 the Directors of the Stratford-upon-Avon Festival Company received the following cable: ‘Please send earth Shakespeare’s garden water River Avon for dedication Shakespeare Theatre, Dallas, Texas, July 1st.’ The ‘Shakespeare Theatre’ referred to was a ‘replica’ of the Globe playhouse erected for the Great Texas Fair; it had previously served as the centre-piece of a mock ‘English village’ constructed for the World’s Fair in Chicago. Stratford knew how to respond to what might seem to us a bizarre request. A group of citizens and actors gathered in the garden of Shakespeare’s birthplace to meet the American Vice-Consul. In a solemn ritual formality into a small box made of charred wood- a relic from the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre which burned down in 1926. The party then repaired to the premises of the Stratford rowing club on the banks of the Avon