“It must be by his death”. “I, Cinna (the Poet)” and the Appropriation of Shakespeare’s Ghostly Voice

When in 2012 Tim Crouch received a commission from the RSC for the World Shakespeare Festival, he wrote the fifth play of his “I, Shakespeare” series: “I, Cinna (The Poet)”. Crouch’s play works on multiple levels of agency: as it challenges the relationship between performer and audience, it also undercuts the hierarchical relationship between author and spectator. As he questions the authority of performance, Crouch exploits, at the same time, the authority of Shakespeare. “I, Cinna (The Poet)”, far from denoting opposition, makes use of the conservative quality of adaptation through which it legitimates Shakespeare’s cultural power and therefore gives stability to his established authority.