Teachers often introduce Shakespeare by offering insight about the life and times of the man before diving into an analysis of his work. myShakespeare meets this need with animated videos that provide foundational context in the “Resources” section of our play menus, covering topics like Shakespeare’s Life and Elizabethan Theater. However, if you are looking for a more in-depth portrait of William Shakespeare that imagines the emotional and psychological experience of this larger-than-life historical figure, the 2022 short film Rough Magic: Exit Shakespeare (available to
stream for free on Tubi) provides a unique and engaging way to introduce students to the idea of the man behind the plays. The creators of the film describe its value in the classroom, saying, “Rough Magic depicts Shakespeare at a point of crisis in his personal and professional life. Near the end of his writing career, Shakespeare fears that he has lost touch with his audience and that his reputation as a writer may not endure. ‘If I can’t write any more,’ he asks himself, ‘who am I?’ As Shakespeare solves his problem by writing The Tempest, teachers can use Rough Magic to build many discussion sessions.”
Directed by Andy Wolk (The Sopranos), the film operates as a one-man show starring veteran actor Tony Amendola as an aging Shakespeare reflecting on his career. Shakespeare died at 52, an age we don’t think of as nearing the end of life in modern times. However, the average life expectancy in Shakespeare’s day was only 38, making the film’s depiction of an existential crisis during what would have been Shakespeare’s final years a very real possibility. The film focuses on Shakespeare’s search for inspiration to write his final play, a project that came to be known as The Tempest. The character expresses frustration and anguish as he wrestles with his own relevance and wonders if he is still capable of creating the masterpieces that made him famous. The film humanizes the writer as a vulnerable man facing the fragility of life, the pressures of great success, the grief of losing a child, and the stress of living through the Plague. In less than 38 minutes, Rough Magic manages to incorporate much of what we know about Shakespeare’s reality by including anecdotes that mention his contemporaries, his relationship to the Crown, his decision to live apart from his family, and the death of his young son, Hamnet.
In addition to including historical facts about Shakespeare’s life, Rough Magic takes some liberties that add depth to the character, such as when Shakespeare recounts seeing his son’s ghost, or when he hints at his own queerness, saying. “You there, with the dark hair and the beautiful smile. Not you, miss. Him. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” These moments, while reflecting events we can only guess at four centuries later, depict Shakespeare as a complicated and nuanced man, who, in addition to being a genius wordsmith and storyteller, was also a struggling artist dealing with the pressures and challenges of his particular place and time in history. Quotes from Shakespeare’s plays are interwoven throughout the script, reminding us that Shakespeare’s famous words may have carried personal meaning. “I wasted time and now doth time waste me,” Shakespeare recites, recalling the line from Richard II as he reflects on his biggest regrets.
The film reaches its climax as inspiration finally strikes, taking the form of a literal bolt of lightning that rocks the Globe theater. Shakespeare begins to see himself as a sorcerer akin to the character of Prospero taking shape in his mind, declaring “My words have power!” before beginning to piece together the plot of The Tempest. He invokes the spirit world to assist him in his creative endeavor, saying, “Give me the power one last time.” As Shakespeare names the key elements of his new play—a magician, a daughter “ignorant of the world,” an explorer, and an enslaved “creature of darkness”—many opportunities arise to dig a little deeper into the ideas presented in The Tempest in connection with Shakespeare’s positionality:
Why did Shakespeare choose to write about an explorer discovering a new world and how did this relate to what he saw happening around him?
What does the play have to say about the experiences of indigenous people around the world during the rise in European exploration?
Why did Shakespeare decide to lean so heavily on the concept of magic in his final play?
For those studying The Tempest, the film can connect these questions with the human experience of the writer and inspire students to build an informed argument about the themes Shakespeare explored in his final work. But even for those focusing on a different play, Rough Magic offers a portrait of the Bard that is hard to find in other productions, providing a combination of facts, historical theory, and fictionalized emotionality that makes Shakespeare feel far less out of reach. As the film ends, Shakespeare finds himself back in the modern world, suggesting that we too can move through space and time to engage with the man and his work. He departs from the screen with words from the epilogue of The Tempest, which many Shakespearean scholars theorize were written as Shakespeare’s personal farewell to the stage: “Release me from my bands with the help of your good hands. Gentle breath of yours my sails must fill, or else my project fails, which was to please. As you from crimes would pardoned be, let your indulgence set me free.”
Stream Rough Magic: Exit Shakespeare now for free on Tubi
