by Natalia Oprea, poster detail deAdMAR
By all accounts, William Shakespeare was a genius. But he was also a mystery — a mythmaker, and perhaps even a master of both farce and tragedy. Over four centuries after his death, we still quote his verses daily, perform his plays on every continent, and debate what he truly meant. Beyond the magic of his poetry and plays lies a chest of little-known, curious, amusing, and sometimes downright bizarre facts that offer us a different glimpse into the man who gifted us new ways of thinking.
Shakespeare’s world is both fascinating and unsettling, populated by kings torn by doubt, labyrinths of consciousness, and the hidden fears of tragic love. But what do we really know about the man behind the words? What lies beyond the curtain? The name “Shakespeare” echoes like a promise of depth, spectacle, and emotion — yet his personality remains an unsolvable riddle, a puzzle as intricate as his works.
Numerically, William Shakespeare wrote 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 long narrative poems (Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece), totaling around 884,000 words. Interestingly, although over 1,700 English words are credited to him — from “lonely” and “unreal” to “bedroom” — he never spelled his own name the same way twice. Surviving documents show variants like “Willm Shaksp” and “William Shakspeare,” but none match today’s iconic spelling.
The mystery of Shakespeare begins right at birth: we know he was baptized on April 26, 1564, and tradition has adopted April 23 as his birthday — the very same date, poetically or coincidentally, on which he died in 1616. But who was the man whose words shaped Western thought?
Some scholars speculate that Shakespeare was secretly Catholic, living quietly with this identity in a profoundly Protestant England. A “Spiritual Testament” — a covert Catholic document — was discovered in his family home, and his works contain subtle references to exile, suffering, and grace. Could his writing also have been a veiled act of resistance?
Shakespeare was not just a writer. He took to the stage himself — likely in roles such as the Ghost in Hamlet or Adam in As You Like It. He was an actor, a shareholder in the famed Globe Theatre, and unlike many artists of his time (or ours), he retired from public life a wealthy man.
When we sit before the stage and await the curtain’s rise, we are not only paying tribute to the playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon. We are rediscovering Shakespeare as a living enigma: a man who turned theatre into a mirror of the world, words into power, and the stage into an altar of humanity. Perhaps we will never truly know who he was. But with every line spoken, with every actor who steps forward and utters “To be or not to be,” we inch closer to the heart of this word-magician. And his mystery… is part of the magic.
Join us at the BABEL International Performing Arts Festival – Târgoviște!
This year, we pay tribute to one of the greatest creators of the global stage: William Shakespeare. Through performances from across the country and around the world, we reinterpret his legacy, bring his immortal characters back to life, and rediscover the pure emotion of the words that forever changed theatre.