The archeological remains of the Rose theatre were found in 1989 and ever since then the campaign to preserve the site, secure a long term lease and build a new theatre while permanently protecting the remains has continued. The venue feels like an archeological site with the remains stretched out in the basement of a new office block and the "current theatre" shoe horned onto the wooden viewing platform. The two elements are connected by the white and red LED lights that map out the original footprint of the site.
The Rose Theatre was originally built in 1587, and so there can be no better subject to set in this space than a story speculating on what Shakespeare did between 1585 (the date his son Hamnet was born) and 1592 (when he appears in records in London) his so called lost years. Written and directed by Victoria Baumgartner (who has an MA in Shakespearean studies) in Lausanne, Switzerland in French, she directs this young English cast in this unique apposite setting but plays loose with dates and muses on the influences that created the writer he became. The result is a fanciful but cleverly weaves in references to his later more famous titles including the Midsummer Night Dream mechanicals play, the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet's gravedigger.
