Les Antliaclastes
HERE LIES SHAKESPEARE

A cast of taxidermied animals in Elizabethan attire makes a puppet contribution to the perennial Shakespeare debate.

If given one book on a desert island, on a space shuttle, or within a time capsule, William Shakespeare is frequently the one confirmed as the voice of our civilization.

Freely adapted from Is Shakespeare Dead? by Mark Twain, Here Lies Shakespeare is a comic tragedy comprising prologue, three short satirical stories, and an epilogue, based on themes surrounding the continually raging Shakespeare authorship debate.

Four hundred and one years since the poet’s death, Patrick Sims’ France-based puppetry company, makes its own unique contribution to this thorny issue. The setting is a hole dug deep inside the earth. It is the site of a great archaeological excavation, a suspicious burial and sandbox full of toys.

With an aesthetic he describes as a mix of Catholic mass and Muppet Show, Patrick’s work has featured in several previous editions of LIMF, at the ICA and Barbican Pit. He has worked with America’s renowned Bread and Puppet Theatre, and was previously artistic director of Buchinger’s Boot Marionettes.