Alberta-based playwright Vern Thiessen’s Shakespeare’s Will is loosely based on the life of Anne Hathaway, a woman best known for the man she married. Little is known, and much is speculated, about Shakespeare’s better half. Thiessen takes the sketchy outline of Hathaway’s life out from under her husband’s formidable shadow and creates a gem of a play that’s part fact, part fiction, and pure theatre.

Scholars have long debated Shakespeare’s intent in leaving Anne – mother of his three children, whom she raised primarily on her own in Stratford while he whooped it up in London – his “second best bed with the furniture” in his will. Thiessen dallies with the will and its meaning and uses it as a springboard for his story about a woman who looks adversity squarely in the face, challenges it, and continues on by finding faith in herself.

The play begins with Anne at home in Stratford in 1616 – just hours after William’s burial – awaiting the arrival of her sister-in-law to discuss her husband’s will. Waiting gives Anne an opportunity to reflect upon and to air her own thoughts about the life she knew while her husband was alive.

Using the sea as a leitmotif throughout, Thiessen transports Anne to the various pools and recesses of her life, with and without her husband. Wry, pensive, and flirtatious, Anne tackles her subjects directly, and speaks of William in honest tones. Funny and smart, Anne’s thoughts flow from one scenario to the next as she presents snapshots from Stratford – with the children, the rats, and the plague – and a look at the life William left behind.

Throwing sentimentality, reverence, and historical accuracy out the window, Thiessen imbues his script with humour and a brand of theatricality that is equally apparent on the page as on stage. Embracing a refreshing audacity that pushes presumption aside, he presents an alternative perspective on Shakespeare that’s an intelligent and generous vehicle for actors hardy enough to drive it.