Shakespeare's First Folio from 1623 opens on Macbeth, on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery
Bard on the Beach’s Christopher Gaze provides an audio guide to For All Time, a new exhibit centred around the extremely rare book acquired by the UBC Library
Portrait of Shakespeare from the First Folio edition of his plays, as engraved by Droeshout, 1623. Photo courtesy UBC Library.
Bard on the Beach’s Christopher Gaze provides an audio guide.
Vancouver Art Gallery and UBC present For All Time: The Shakespeare FIRST FOLIO from January 15 to March 20
SET BENEATH A glass case on the fourth floor of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Shakespeare’s 399-year-old First Folio now sits open to the first scene of Macbeth. Ornate scrollwork adorns the page atop the title in original Elizabethan script: The Tragedie of Macbeth. On close inspection, the edges of the pages still hold much of their gilded sheen, enclosed in red morocco leather decorated with gold.
Measuring about 8.5-by-13 inches, the precious book is at the centre of the just-announced For All Time: The Shakespeare FIRST FOLIO exhibit, presented by the VAG with the UBC Library. And looking at it in person, as Stir did this morning, is thrilling—no matter how much you know about the Bard.
Of the estimated 235 copies that remain worldwide, there is only one other version in Canada—in Toronto.
There were many pages the team who acquired the book could have turned to in its display of this beyond-rare new prize in the UBC Library collection. The book contains 36 plays in total—including Macbeth and Julius Caesar, which sits on the facing page at the gallery—many of them passed down through history only because of this publication seven years after Shakespeare’s death.
“Some of his greatest plays only survive because of this book; half of Shakespeare’s plays would have been lost to history,” says exhibition curator Gregory Mackie, associate professor of English and Norman Colbeck Curator, UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections, in an interview at the gallery. “That’s why we feature Macbeth: nobody would have heard of Macbeth, except people in the 17th century, without it.”
For All Time is meant as an immediate celebration of UBC Library’s hard-won acquisition, in June 2021, of a complete first edition of William Shakespeare's Comedies Histories and Tragedies, published in 1623.
When the opportunity to acquire this First Folio arose in January 2021, Katherine Kalsbeek, head of rare books and special collections at UBC Library, says that the library felt it had to act, with so few copies left in private hands. The university worked for long months to acquire it from a private collector in the U.S., through Christie’s New York, with funding from a consortium of anonymous donors from across North America and support from the Department of Canadian Heritage. (The last time Christie’s auction house sold a First Folio, in a public auction in October 2020, it sold for $9,978,000.)
The First Folio is being displayed here along with three subsequent 17th-century Folio editions of Shakespeare's plays, marking the first time—and possibly a once-in-a-lifetime chance—to see all four Folios shown in Vancouver.
“We’re very excited to make the wonder of these books accessible to people who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to do so,” Mackie said at the press announcement. “One of our main points in putting together this project, this acquisition, was to ensure that cultural properties of this magnitude and stature are not only confined to certain points of the world, but are more equitably distributed, so that British Columbians and Western Canadians and even people from the Pacific Northwest in the United States can come and actually see them in person.
“We’re committed to opening up access to a cultural treasure like this to the maximum number of people possible,” he stresses.
The exhibit takes over the fourth-floor space at the VAG. The hall is laid out a bit like a Shakespearean stage, with classical archway entrances and exits—the exquisite First Folio taking centre stage. Alongside the four rare books, visitors can read wall panels about the historical printing processes of Folio editions, the history of Shakespearean productions in Vancouver (right back to the 19th century), and a timeline of the Bard’s life.
The exhibition is accompanied by an audio mobile guide featuring the voice of Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival founding artistic director Christopher Gaze—who, as you might expect, is particularly jazzed about the chance to access the First Folio firsthand.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that UBC has been able to acquire this most magnitude and unique first volume,” he says. “Vancouver has become a city that has a great appreciation for William Shakespeare, as seen by the massive success of Bard on the Beach over the last 33 years, and this most precious book will become another jewel in the crown for UBC, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and for Bard. It will inspire everyone who values, and of course enjoys, the plays of Shakespeare.”
He stresses that Shakespeare’s work is as alive today as it was 399 years ago on the First Folio’s printing.
For proof, look no further than the recent release of Joel Coen’s hit new black-and-white Hollywood film The Tragedie of Macbeth, starring Denzel Washington, or the fact that Bard on the Beach is already planning to return to its outdoor stage with fresh renditions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet this summer.
As Gaze puts it: “This Folio literally shows us their precious roots, a unique bridge from the past to what matters today.”
Elsewhere in the exhibit, For All Time takes Shakespeare even further into the future, with an XR rendition of Macbeth’s famous witches scene, performed by UBC Theatre program through digitally generated avatars. The video also takes viewers on a digital tour through the First Folio, including hand-written notes that trace its own colourful history of ownership.
Watch for more high-tech interpretations of the centuries-old text for next year, as UBC plans events and celebrations around the First Folio’s 400th birthday.
And if you can’t get down to the gallery or are still hiding out from omicron, head to the Vancouver Art Gallery site starting opening day to catch a 360-degree tour of For All Time: The Shakespeare FIRST FOLIO exhibit.
Out at UBC, the journey with the new acquisition is just beginning. “We’re excited about the possiblities that allow for teaching, research, learning, and just for inspiration,” says Gage Averill, dean of the Faculty of Arts, adding the book already has been put to use across such departments as theatre, literature, and history.
As for the Vancouver Art Gallery, the facility allows a large, central location for a broader audience to get a look at the First Folio before it moves back to its permanent home on display out at UBC Library. The exhibition featuring the four rare books also fits in with a gallery mandate that goes far beyond paintings on walls and sculptures on plinths.
“This project complements the gallery’s history of exhibitions that explore the intersections of disciplines, media, and popular culture and places art in broader cultural contexts,” VAG CEO and director Anthony Kiendl explains.
But whether you’re coming at it for its history, its beauty, or its text, it's important to know that no prior knowledge of the Bard is necessary to marvel at this artifact; no Shakespeare 101 prereqs here. As Mackie puts it, “We want people to come in with curiosity and open up their capacity for words."
Related Articles
