Stephen Hopkins and "Stephano"

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2021

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

He was in a shipwreck. He was at Jamestown. He was on the Mayflower. And maybe, just maybe, he’s in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Documentary filmmaker Andrew Buckley’s ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, was the only passenger on the Mayflower who had previously been to the Americas. Eleven years before the Mayflower landed in what is now Massachusetts, Hopkins sailed aboard the Sea Venture, a ship bound for Jamestown that was blown off-course by a hurricane and wrecked in Bermuda. Among Hopkins’s fellow passengers on the Sea Venture was William Strachey, a poet and playwright whose account of the ill-fated voyage may have inspired Shakespeare’s "The Tempest." Buckley’s new documentary, "Stephano: The True Story of Shakespeare’s Shipwreck," traces Hopkins’s travels in England and the Americas and links him to The Tempest’s drunken, mutinous butler, Stephano. We talk to Buckley about the documentary, walking in his great-grandfather’s footsteps, and what the story reveals about the early colonization of North America. Buckley is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. Andrew Buckley is the creator and host of the public media series Hit and Run History. "Stephano: The True Story of Shakespeare’s Shipwreck," premiered on Rhode Island PBS in January 2021. Learn about broadcasts, screenings, and video-on-demand opportunities to watch the film at hitandrunhistory.com. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published March 16, 2021. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “How Now, Stephano!” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer, with help from Leonor Fernandez. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

Transcript

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0:00.0	He was at Jamestown. He was on the Mayflower. And maybe, just maybe, he also inspired a character in Shakespeare.
0:15.4	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers, director.
0:22.9	Stephen Hopkins is a settler you likely didn't hear about during American history in grade
0:28.1	school. But there are compelling reasons why maybe you should have, and now one of his
0:34.2	relatives is trying to correct that oversight. Andrew Buckley has produced a film called
0:40.2	Stefano, the true story of Shakespeare's shipwreck. In it, he walks in Stephen Hopkins' footsteps,
0:47.7	sometimes literally, to talk about his role in the white settlement of North America, and,
0:52.9	as the title of the film suggests, his
0:55.4	possible appearance as a character in Shakespeare's The Tempest. There are historians who theorized
1:01.5	that parts of the tempest were inspired by an account of the storm that wrecked a ship resupplying
1:07.2	the endangered Jamestown colony in 1609 and landed them in Bermuda. Stephen Hopkins was on
1:13.7	that ship and as you'll hear, Andrew Buckley's film suggests Shakespeare knew that and used it in The Tempest.
1:22.1	Andrew joined us from his home in Cape Cod to lay all this out for a podcast that we call How Now, Stefano?
1:29.9	Andrew Buckley is interviewed by Barbara Bogay.
1:33.2	Andrew, why don't we start at Square One? Remind us who Stephen Hopkins was.
1:38.4	Stephen Hopkins was, I mean, the short way of putting it is he was the only person, passenger on board the Mayflower, who had been to North America before.
1:48.3	Something must have changed after the birth of Giles because in the spring of 1609, Stephen deeded his plot of land to his mother-in-law, the alehouse owner, Joan Kent, for safekeeping.
1:57.8	As a widow, she was allowed to own land, whereas his wife, Mary, could not at the time.
2:03.0	Stephen was about to take a risk that could end in his death. And he plays a pivotal role
2:09.7	not only in the story of Virginia, but also 10 years later with the fledgling Plymouth colony.
2:19.6	It seemed good to the company for many considerations
2:22.3	to send some amongst them to Massasoit,
	...

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