William Shakespeare is peerless in literature, drama and poetry. His plays are often a difficult read, though, even for native English speakers. This has contributed, I feel, to an oversight and under-appreciation for the wisdom he has offered for centuries. So in ST! I endeavor to engage, entertain and educate a modern day audience.
Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments
And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovest those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example mayst thou be denied!
Well-dramatized, well-scored. A sinister, foreboding air. So much so we just feel in our bones that this love interest will simply fester further, twist in dark alleys. We feel in our bones that it is not going to end well in the least.
So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since, seldom coming, in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special blest,
By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.
Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope.
This is exquisitely, deftly crafted poetry about the quandary of longing for someone from a distance. In those quiet, reeling wee hours of the night, imagination can make that love feel real. And intimate. But alas it is not.
Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'
To me that languish'd for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
'I hate' she alter'd with an end,
That follow'd it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away;
'I hate' from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying 'not you.'
The Chorus gives us a dramatic walk-through of and emotional heads-up on Henry V. The Folger Elizabethan Theater keeps it straight to the text, without bells and whistles, which is probably how Shakespeare and his troupe performed it 400 years ago.
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide on man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
It is one of the more quoted lines in Shakespeare, and it opens Twelfth Night, with the half-exhilarated, half-pining Duke Orsino:
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
The perfect poetry of Shakespeare’s tragedy reveals the heart-breaking loss of “star-crossed” love. Helen Hayes Award-winning director Aaron Posner leads an outstanding ensemble into the heart of this powerful, provocative play.
Romeo and Juliet just closed at the Folger Elizabethan Theater in Washington, DC., always a must-visit for me whenever I travel to the US capital. I will always love The Prologue, the sonnet that literally sets the stage for this timeless romantic tragedy:
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have re-labelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W. Lawrence, consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "problem plays", because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comedic and supply a happy ending. Directed by Jeremy Cole.
Brilliantly juggling drama, comedy, romance and suspense, The Winter's Tale is filled with twists and turns, laughs, surprises, and fascinating characters (including one of the first feminist roles ever written) – all this, and Shakespeare’s glorious poetry, as well.
It’s no wonder the Observer wrote that “this tragi-comi-romance is possibly Shakespeare's most emotionally complex and breathtakingly theatrical play.
Director David Jones used a lot of long shots in this episode to try to create the sense of a small person taking in a vast world. Annette Crosbie thought of Dionyza as an early version of Alexis Colby, Joan Collins' character in Dynasty.
2009 Emmy Nominee Ian McKellen recreates his recent stage performance of the tragic monarch in a special television adaptation. Directed by Trevor Nunn, the telecast includes nearly all the original cast members of the sold-out Royal Shakespeare Company production that premiered in Stratford-Upon-Avon in April 2007.
Kenneth Branagh takes on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night with the Renaissance Theatre Company. The exemplary cast includes Richard Briers as Malvolio, Frances Barber as Viola, Caroline Langrishe as Olivia, Christopher Ravenscroft as Orsino, and James Saxon as Sir Toby Belch. The original music for this production is by Paul McCartney and Pat Doyle.
Director John Gorrie interpreted the play as an English country house comedy, and incorporated influences ranging from Luigi Pirandello's Il Gioco delle Parti to ITV's Upstairs, Downstairs. Gorrie also set the play during the English Civil War, hoping the use of cavaliers and roundheads would help focus the dramatisation of the conflict between festivity and Puritanism. Gorrie wanted the episode to be as realistic as possible, and in designing Olivia's house, he made sure that the geography of the building was practical and made sense, and then shot the episode in such a way that the audience becomes aware of that geography, often shooting characters entering and existing doorways into rooms and corridors.
Director David Jones originally wanted to shoot the episode in Stratford-upon-Avon but was restricted to a studio setting. Determined that the production be as realistic as possible, Jones got around this by having designer Dom Homfray base the rooms on real Tudor houses associated with Shakespeare; Falstaff's room is based on the home of Mary Arden (Shakespeare's mother) in Wilmcote, and the wives' houses are based on the house of Shakespeare's daughter Susanna, and her husband, John Hall. For the background of exterior shots, he used a miniature Tudor village built of plasticine. Homfray won Best Production Designer at the 1983 BAFTAs for his work on this episode. Jones was also determined that the two wives not be clones of one another, so he had them appear as if Page was a well-established member of the bourgeoisie and Ford a member of the nouveau riche.
Director Stuart Burge initially thought about shooting the entire episode against a blank tapestry background, with no set whatsoever, but it was felt that audiences may not respond well to this, and the idea was scrapped. Ultimately the production had a style referred to as "stylized realism"; the environments are suggestive of their real life counterparts, the foregrounds are broadly realistic representations, but the backgrounds tended to be more artificial; "a representational context close to the actors, with a more stylized presentation of distance." Jan Spoczynski won Designer of the Year at the 1985 Royal Television Society Awards for his work on this episode.
Richard II (6 January 1367 – ca. 14 February 1400) was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard, a son of Edward, the Black Prince, was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III. Richard was the younger brother of Edward of Angoulême; upon the death of this elder brother, Richard—at four years of age—became second in line to the throne after his father. Upon the death of Richard's father prior to the death of Edward III, Richard, by agnatic succession, became the first in line for the throne. With Edward III's death the following year, Richard succeeded to the throne at the age of ten.
As part of Richard's program of asserting his authority, he also tried to cultivate the royal image. Unlike any other English king before him, he had himself portrayed in panel paintings of elevated majesty, of which two survive: the over life-size Westminster Abbey portrait of the king (c. 1390, see top of page), and the Wilton Diptych (1394–99), a portable work probably intended to accompany Richard on his Irish campaign. It is one of the few surviving English examples of the courtly International Gothic style of painting that was developed in the courts of the Continent, especially Prague and Paris. Richard's expenditure on jewelry, rich textiles and metalwork was far higher than on paintings, but as with his illuminated manuscripts, there are hardly any surviving works that can be connected with him, except for a crown, "one of the finest achievements of the Gothic goldsmith", that probably belonged to Anne.
Contemporary writers, even those less sympathetic to the king, agreed that Richard was a "most beautiful king", though with a "face which was white, rounded and feminine", implying he lacked manliness. He was athletic and tall; when his tomb was opened in 1871 he was found to be six feet tall. He was also intelligent and well read, and when agitated he had a tendency to stammer. While the Westminster Abbey portrait probably shows a good similarity of the king, the Wilton Diptych portrays the king as significantly younger than he was at the time; it must be assumed that he had a beard by this point. Religiously, he was orthodox, and particularly towards the end of his reign he became a strong opponent of the Lollard heresy. He was particularly devoted to the cult of Edward the Confessor, and around 1395 he had his own arms impaled with the mythical arms of the Confessor. Though not a warrior king like his grandfather, Richard nevertheless enjoyed tournaments, as well as hunting.
Perhaps someday I will write my own psychological take on Richard II, pen a collection of poem as I have for films, or create a set of portraits that allude imaginatively to his reign and personality.
Richard II, with David Tennant in the title role, will be broadcast by the Royal Shakespeare Company live from Stratford-upon-Avon to cinemas in the UK and around the world on 13 November 2013 (International may vary).
Richard II is my favorite history play, and this RSC production looks breathtaking.
Actor David Tennant talks about how seeing Derek Jacobi playing the character while he was at drama school began a lifelong fascination with Shakespeare's 'extraordinary, enticing, unknowable' king. The previous star of Doctor Who explains how this has led him to return to the Royal Shakespeare Company for a fourth time, following his hugely acclaimed performance as Hamlet.
I saw that BBC production of Jacobi has Richard II, while I was a student at Northwestern University and I was enthralled with his performance.
Greg Doran, director of Richard II, talks about the history plays as a struggle for English national identity.
Find out how designer Stephen Brimson Lewis created the critically acclaimed design for the world of Richard II.
"What's the best place that an actor can be for each moment?" he asks. He describes how the design for the play came about, starting with the unique opportunity that the Royal Shakespeare Theatre's shape offers to a designer. Making full use of the depth and height of the space was a priority for the team who have developed the automated set, lighting projections and costumes for the play.
For someone with aspirations to make film and stage plays, these production diaries are a terrific set of lessons. To hear, in this video, how Lewis conceptualizes dramatic space and position, and how technology must enable drama, is marvelous indeed.
David Tennant talks about his excitement in the lead-up to his first ever live theatre performance to audiences in cinemas across the world.
Richard II is broadcast to cinemas worldwide from 13 November 2013.
Media and technology clearly extend the reach of an intimate staging, here at Stratford-upon-Avon, to theatres around the world.
RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran talks about his new season for next summer, in which he directs Henry IV parts 1 & 2. He introduces the other shows and directors from the season: Simon Goodwin (The Two Gentlemen of Verona), Jo Davies (The Roaring Girl), Polly Findlay (Arden of Faversham), Maria Aberg (The White Devil).
I am glad to hear that the Royal Shakespeare Company will stage Henry IV (Part 1) and Henry IV (Part 2), following Richard II chronologically in Shakespeare's tetralogy. My friend Paul introduced me to The Hollow Crown, which piqued my interest in all four plays and the acting and cinematography of which left me in awe.
Simon Ash, our Senior Production Manager for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, describes the last week of technical work before Richard II opens.
'Are we going to be ready to get the actors on stage on Monday evening at 6 o'clock?' he asks. ['And we were. Just.'] His explanation of the process of bringing the show to stage makes clear it's not an easy question to answer.
Simon and the team have been planning this work for at least three months. In the week before the show opens, six departments - 40 to 50 people - will be working in the forestage, auditorium and backstage of the the theatre for 12 hours a day. Transport, facilities, equipment and scenery all come together.
Simon Ash must indeed be a General Manager sort, who makes sure that several, different roles and responsibilities work in concert with another and they have the resources, capabilities and motivation they need to deliver on schedule.
Hear the music of the court of Richard II as imagined by Bruce O'Neil, our Head of Music, and Paul Englishby, composer. They've created the musical landscape for this production and share a few of its 'divine and angelic' musical moments.
We always have musicians playing live in the theatre for our performances because as Bruce says, 'It really gives you a special atmosphere that you can't reproduce in any other way.'
I love music, and I know it can cinch the entire ambiance of a play. I enjoy hearing Paul Englishby work at both the divine, angelic music and the heavy, military sound. From the bit we hear in this video, it resonates well the theme and progression of Richard II.
Richard II has now opened in Stratford-upon-Avon to positive audience reactions and reviews. In this diary we go behind the scene in the lead-up to a preview show.
Keith Osborn, who plays Sir Stephen Scroop, meets us at the stage door and takes us into the dressing rooms for pre-show preparations.
James Kitto, the duty manager, greets us front of house as the team prepare to welcome the public.
The doors open and theatre-goers arrive. Backstage, Klare Roger from the stage management team begins the count down to curtain up with a thirty minute call.
I really appreciate these behind-the-scenes, especially seeing what actors do to make their final preparations for the show. I took a drama class in Dubai, and as we prepared to deliver our monologue to an audience, one by one, I needed quiet and space. I managed to eke out space, but a friend who was to follow me was a bit too chatty. So I had to walk away from her.
Lyn Darnley gives us an inside look at the voice coaching she does with the actors. It goes without saying that how the actors speak and act Shakespeare is at the thrust of a meaningful, successful production. We learn that voice isn't just voice: It is physical (breath and muscles), it is emotional (drawn from the play), and it is linguistic (iambic pentameter).
[Jim Shapiro] talks about treason, censorship and seditious material in 'a radioactive play', which was both shocking and highly topical for audiences when it was written, and six years later sparked an uprising.
Professor Shapiro explains connections between Richard II and the reigning monarch, Elizabeth I, which Elizabeth herself, then a childless and ageing monarch, saw all too clearly. Like Richard, she had problems with Ireland, taxed her people and had no heir.
I can only imagine what a playwright, a repertory, and their producers or benefactors have to go through to stage what was clearly a politically combustible play. So the struggle for national identity that director Greg Doran relates wasn't just historical (14th century) but also contemporary (16th and 17th centuries).
'There aren't many things that we can't turn our hands to here,' [Alistair McArthur] says. And the team prove it as they talk through design, fittings, sleeve adjustments, velvet breastplates and travel-crowns.
Alistair leads a tour of the costume department, through painting and dyeing, on to footwear and armoury and finally into the hats and jewellery team. Everyone is busy working on the outfits that our company will wear in the performances. With plenty of last minute changes and refinements it is an interesting time for our costume department.
I bet that a director's decision to stage a period piece, versus a modern day one, is partly influenced by the challenges of costume and the corresponding budget. McArthur gives us a good glimpse of the complexity and pressure of outfitting Richard II and company, and all of this must have taken quite a lot of talent, resources and cash.
Greg Doran is the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the director of Richard II, currently staged in Stratford-upon-Avon until November 16th 2013. He explains that these history plays reflected the struggles to form a national identity and to reconcile personal power. In this respect, William Shakespeare puts key politicians of Richard II's reign under the microscope.
Pretty Emma Hamilton, playing the Queen to Richard II, appreciates Doran's introductions and warm-up among the actors. Definitely it must be a thrill to perform for The Royal Shakespeare Company. I knew Richard II was a boy, age 10, when he assumed the throne. But I didn't realize that his wife was only 6 years old, when they married, and was 10 years old herself, when he died. She was Isabella of Valois, who was Richard II's second wife, after his first wife, Anne of Bohemia died two years before.
Some critics of Da Vinci Code and Gladiators accuse these films of veering away from historical truth. Maybe it's simply their job to criticize so, and maybe even an exercise they positively enjoy. Fine. Otherwise I'd think their criticisms were ignorant: These films are works of art, imagination and license, not documentaries, so of course they are not going to be factual, at least not completely.
That said, historian Helen Castor notes that while we marvel at the architecture of Westminster Abbey, we rely on works like Shakespeare's histories to see the people who populated it. Most that medieval historians have are formal government, technical records, and consequently they always have to employ their imagination to supply the human element, as Castor puts it. She sees Shakespeare's histories, with his keen pulse on human nature, as a fantastic resource that feeds into our collective understanding of what happened.
Katie Chaput teaches 'Othello' as part of her unit, bridging African and English literature to create new contexts for her students to consider. How many doors to discovery can you open for your class with Shakespeare's plays?
American education is, at best, rather demure about race relations. So I wonder how teachers do teach 'Othello,' when racial discrimination is quite flagrant, as when Iago tries to rile Brabantio about what the Moor Othello is doing to his beloved daughter Desdemona:
'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd; for shame, put on your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise;
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
Arise, I say.
Iago not only reduces race to black and white, but also plays on words in a disgustingly graphic way:
ram, both as a noun and a verb, suggesting blunt force
ewe, as a pun for you, that is, Brabantio
tupping, a rude term suggesting animalistic, sexual thrashing
Indeed I wonder how much Chaput covers the brutal nature of such words in the play.
Hamlet finally reconciles the inevitability of the deed that he must do and the consequence of doing that deed. I cannot think of another tragic hero in Shakespeare who finds the fatalistic calm that is the eye of the storm, before he is completely swallowed up by that storm.
The BBC spoke with Fiona Banks from Globe Education in response to Julian Fellowes’ statements about Shakespeare only being understandable to those with expensive educations, and Banks replies, “Shakespeare’s for everybody. We can all understand him.” Banks isn’t the only one speaking out against Fellowes’ assertions of who can understand Shakespeare’s language. The Guardian gives voice to actors and educators from the Royal Shakespeare Company and The Globe who dismiss Fellowes’ opinions as “patent piffle.”
To which I also weighed in, after Anzin Hoshin Roshi shared the article above on Google+:
"Patent piffle" ... I like that!
Shakespeare takes time to understand, along with patience, reflection and study. He's probably the antithesis to modern day texting, Tweeting, and posting, where language is often reduced to its simplest, most parse elements. So, not surprisingly, he comes across as complex to many.
"Is Shakespeare too hard to understand?" I don't think so, but it's a matter of personal judgment. For those who've really had no encounter with him, then reading a play or watching one on stage is just the beginning of understanding him. Besides literature and drama, his plays are so rich in psychology, history and culture, that it can all seem daunting and impossible.
That said, Shakespeare is for everybody and he does belong to us. From the very beginning, for instance, I found that he spoke to me. But maybe Julian Fellowes was right, after all: I've had very expensive education (lol).
Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes was criticised for saying that people needed a “Shakespearean scholarship” to understand his verse. Some of Britain’s leading actors, including Sir Michael Gambon, Mark Rylance and Zoe Wanamaker, also admitted struggling with Shakespeare. However, Sir Ben said: “After leaving the RSC [Royal Shakespeare Company] and before I did Gandhi [in 1982], I had the privilege of visiting schools in America with a group of Shakespearean actors. And instead of bashing their way through the text, we walked into the classroom and we performed scenes in the classroom for them. The pupils were slapping their hands on their foreheads and saying, ‘Wow — that’s what he meant!’
“A good actor, a focused actor, can unlock a 400 to 500-year-old text and make it hit you as you’ve never heard it before. A short answer to the question of whether we need to do more to stimulate the interest of children is, ‘Yes please’, but let it be done under the right conditions.
“Let’s go into schools and say, this is our little group of actors, this is the first scene of Henry IV part II, listen … Honestly, they’ll be jumping out of their seat. It’s magic stuff.”
What Julian Fellowes and these actors have said is the truth: Shakespeare is not an easy read, even for native English speakers, mainly because, I think, he wrote in verse. We're simply not used to hearing poetry as we try to follow dialogue on stage.
I commented in the Google+ Shakespeare community:
I agree with Sir Ben! What I imagine him and other actors doing in a classroom is this: In the play ("Pyramus and Thisbe") within a play ("A Midsummer Nights Dream"), Nick Bottom is so excited about his little repertory performing, that he gives on-stage direction and running commentary, all the while acting, too. So it isn't just a formal, straight-forward performance, but a highly interactive and engaging show. The audience of Theseus, Hippolyta et al. loved it all!
Henry V (Tom Hiddleston) has the makings of a fine king. The French ambassador brings a challenge from the French Dauphin. Inspired by his courtiers, Henry swears that he will, with all force, answer this challenge. The Chorus (John Hurt) tells of England’s preparations for war and Henry's army sails for France, where Henry and his meager forces prove victorious against all odds.
In this excerpt from Shakespeare's Henry V, the king (Tom Hiddleston) rallies his English troops prior to battle with the French. Second only to Hamlet's "to be or not to be," Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech at Agincourt is one of the most famous monologues in English literature.
Henry V:
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
Just before fighting begins at Agincourt, the French Herald Montjoy rides up to the English camp with a message from the French Constable - give up or be obliterated. Henry (Tom Hiddleston) tells the Herald that there will be no surrender.
Henry V motivates his men, and no doubt himself as well, so masterfully as to make them believe that not to fight along with him is to bring shame upon themselves forever. But of course it isn't just this speech that does it for the outnumbered few, but also Henry's balance of fierceness and humility and his on-the-horse and on-the-ground example. Maybe Shakespeare had Henry V already sketched, and well in mind, when he drew up "Henry IV, Part 1." After all Prince Hal can speak for the common people, for he has regularly been among them and he knows them well.
Moreover, disguising himself as a common soldier, so we can walk about and talk with his men is a brilliant ploy. Again we have seen this brilliant little ploy with Falstaff in "Henry IV, Part 1." His intent was not to shake out any man who spoke ill of the King, but earnestly, I think, to know what made his men tick and perhaps to offer them, unwittingly, further incentive to fight for the King. It is a personal, military ploy that is worthy of Sun Tzu and "The Art of War."
Finally, Henry V is nervous and awkward in courting Kate, who is Catherine of Valois and daughter of the defeated King Charles VI of France. It takes a whole different set of motivational and influencing skills to woo her. Nonetheless, it is the same sincere, impassioned Henry V that wins over Kate as well.
Such a brilliantly rendered character by Shakespeare.
PBS makes the entire Henry V available (free) November 7th. So if you happen to read this article, watch it before then. This, and the rest of The Hollow Crown series, are a superb production indeed.
The frail Henry IV (Jeremy Irons) is finally reconciled to his son, Hal, before his death. When Hal (Tom Hiddleston) comes to the throne as Henry V, he is left to bury the ghosts of his father’s past while fighting both the French forces as well as his own inner demons.
Henry IV fights his frailty and dismisses the ministrations of his ministers, but there is no denying the approaching end. From tumbling to the floor, to lying beside with his crown, to handing it over to Prince Hal, the stellar drama of The Hollow Crown thus continues.
The fact that I could hardly pay attention in the first half of this film is just my personal thing. I can be easily distracted. It doesn't speak to the drama Shakespeare so deftly and patiently unfolds in Part 2. As I mentioned to my friend, Paul, I had read this play only once and had never seen it performed. I was polite when I said that it's a very different tone than Part 1, which meant that I was frankly bored halfway through the film.
But, oh, how the second half is the fruition of Shakespeare's dramatic patience and prowess.
That sequence of scenes with Henry IV is superb. When he awakens in a startle, with his bedside pillow empty, he rushes to his throne, only to find his eldest sitting on it and wearing his crown. We know that things were not as they appeared. So as Henry IV expends quite a lot of breath chiding Prince Hal, we cringe and want to say 'Dear King, it isn't so.'
But it's the "I know thee not, old man" passage in Act V, scene v that I found most heartbreaking. It was the most heartbreaking when I read this play 30 years ago, too. Falstaff is of course the ringleader among the demons of Prince Hal's youth, made incarnate as a jolly, cagey and lying fellow. This exchange breaks my heart, because in the drama he is no abstract figure but a real person. To be dismissed so flagrantly in public like that is mighty cruel of the now Henry V. Simon Russell Beale acts this scene so so poignantly brilliant.
After Falstaff finally catches the new King's attention with:
My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!
The King responds thus:
I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on.
PBS makes the entire Henry IV, Part 2 available (free) November 5th. So if you happen to read this article, watch it before then. This, and The Hollow Crown series, are a superb production indeed.
The heir to the throne, Prince Hal (Tom Hiddleston), defies his father, King Henry (Jeremy Irons), by spending his time at Mistress Quickly’s (Julie Walters) tavern in the company of the dissolute Falstaff (Simon Russell Beale) and his companions. The king is threatened by a rebellion led by Hal’s rival, Hotspur (Joe Armstrong), Hotspur’s father Northumberland (Alun Armstrong) and his uncle.
I wrote in the Shakespeare community on Google+:
I am so enthralled with this series! Like Richard II, Henry IV Part 1 is very well-directed and -acted. For example, much of the exchange between Prince Hal and Falstaff is nonverbal - which we can sense from the text - and actors Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale pull it off brilliantly. There are so many moments when the line between bawdy and serious gets blurred, then crossed, and they act those moments with their faces. Plus, Jeremy Irons as Henry IV is a longtime favorite, so it was a pleasure to see him act.
PBS makes the entire Henry IV, Part 1 available (free) for eight more days. So if you happen to read this article, watch it right away. I did say it was a superb production, right.
Hiddleston previews The Hollow Crown, and persuades that this historical tetralogy does have all the drama in the world. I did say that I was enthralled by it all, didn't I.
Richard II is a vain, self-indulgent man who rules with little regard for his people's welfare. He is ultimately overthrown by his cousin Bolingbroke, who ascends the throne as Henry IV (Jeremy Irons). In this scene from the Shakespeare history play, King Richard (Ben Whishaw) relinquishes the crown to Henry Bolingbroke (Rory Kinnear).
This is the first play in "The Hollow Crown" series - so beautifully filmed, so superbly acted. It had been a long time, since I last read and watch "Richard II," but this film reminded me how much I love this play. The King is narcissistic, even histrionic, but, oh, how I loved his poetry. He does the kingdom wrong, and makes for an overall weak leadership. But Ben Whishaw makes us (me, at least) sympathize with Richard.
In the above clip especially, I wondered about the allusion to Jesus Christ. Whishaw's hair and beard make for a Jesus in his mid- to late-20s, and his outstretched arms like so is the posture of statues I've seen in Catholic churches. Then, later in the film, while imprisoned in the Tower, Richard is dressed only in loin cloth, a very familiar bare attire for Jesus. Once killed, and put into a wooden coffin, his bent legs strikingly resemble those of Jesus on the cross. The director makes the tie explicit, when the camera pans from Richard in the coffin on the ground, to the crucifix high up on the Henry IV's throne.
Did Shakespeare suggest a messiah in our midst in "Richard II"? Were there any hints of such in the actual Richard II? Or was this a director's artistic license? I am very intrigued.
PBS makes the entire Richard II available (free) for three more days. So if you happen to read this article, watch it right away. I did say it was a superb production, right.
I memorized the passage of this prison scene, as a university student, and recited it everywhere. I was so enamored with Richard's poetry, and I evidently still am.
The Twist: The bulk of the story and several key scenes remain intact, with Denmark swapped for the African savanna, and people swapped for animals (mostly lions).
It's easy to overlook the relationship between "Hamlet" and The Lion King, since Shakespeare certainly didn't invent the idea of an 'evil uncle.' But any theater fan would be able to follow the parallels along: the proud king (Mufasa) is killed 'accidentally' by his evil, power-hungry brother (Scar), and after a time away from the kingdom, the prince and rightful heir (Simba) returns to bring the truth to light. The film even includes the ghostly vision of Mufasa, and Simba's pair of fast-talking friends Timon and Pumbaa (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the original).
A musical treatment and happier ending, of course, but "Hamlet" nonetheless.
I didn't know that "The Lion King" (1994) was based on "Hamlet," and my first reaction was, Isn't it a bit of a stretch to say that? I just didn't buy the tie between the two. Then, I thought, Shakespeare must've influenced and inspired generations of creatives - from writers and directors, to poets and painters. So the princely Simba may be Hamlet, which writers - Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton - evolved into a lavish African story and a more complete family story.
The Twist: The supernatural elements of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" are re-skinned into an alien world, and sci-fi fans would have no idea they're witnessing a story with elements written centuries before space travel.
Forbidden Planet is remembered for many reasons: as one of the original true science-fiction feature films, its style and imagery helped influence the genre for decades. But the wealth of laser beams and robots help disguise one of the film's main influences - "The Tempest," Shakespeare's tale of magic and revenge, considered one of the playwright's greatest works.
The shift from a remote island to an alien world means that much of the play has been adapted beyond recognition, but major themes and story arcs follow those set down by the Bard. And we can't help but think that Shakespeare's comedy and Leslie Nielsen is a match made in heaven.
I may have seen "Forbidden Planet" (1956) several years ago, but I don't have much memory of it. "The Tempest," if we imagine it from the text, may well be another planet altogether, with its magical landscape and odd characters. Wholly from that planet, Dr. Edward Morbius' "alluring daughter" Alta had never seen a man before, and is apparently so enthralled at meeting Commander John Adams, that we recall Miranda's exhilaration upon meeting Ferdinand, the Prince of Naples:
O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
The Twist: Change a shipwreck to a new high school, and Shakespeare's tale of gender-bending, disguises and love triangles is tailor-made for a new generation.
In Shakespeare's original comedy, the young Viola is separated from her twin brother after a shipwreck, and disguises herself as the male Cesario. Eventually acting as go-between for a wealthy Duke and his romantic interest, he/she begins to fall for the Duke, as the Duke's would-be lover develops feelings for Viola/Cesario.
Amanda Bynes takes over the role of Viola' when updated to a high school setting, posing as her brother to play on a boy's soccer team. Although the film didn't garner the same accolades as the source material, Shakespeare can't be blamed for this one.
"She's the Man" (2006) hadn't crossed my radar until now. But it looks to be frolicking fun, based, as it were, on Shakespeare's masterful, gender-bending "Twelfth Night." Is the full film on YouTube?
In Once More into the Breeches, Alexis Soloski writes that women playing male characters in Shakespeare isn't anything new. The Bard's plays offered up more plum roles for men than for women, and so enterprising productions going back to the 17th century broke boundaries and let women have at it. Whynot?
Besides Harriet Walter and Cush Jumbo in male roles in "Julius Caesar," Rachel Gluck takes on Romeo in a lesbian-themed production about the star-crossed lovers. Again I ask Why not?
William Shakespeare was not only a paradigm of creativity, but also wrote plays that in and of themselves are a springboard for creativity for scores of directors, scriptwriters and actors. So Romeo and Juliet can be female lovers and certainly male lovers, too. Prospero in "The Tempest" can be Prospera, as Helen Mirren was in a recent film adaptation.
But actors being actors in a fantasy world really can play any role that their talent and creativity will allow. So we don't necessarily have to change the gender of the character. A male character can remain male, but perhaps played by a woman.
Soloski points out, however, not all critics and aficionados are going to like these gender-bending productions. But if the troupe can pull off a truly deft, unique production, and market it well, then it should draw enough of an audience to hit the troupe's and producer's financial targets.
If it works, it works. For me, I simply marvel at the talent of people in theater, and this talent may involve bending gender.
Learn how David Garrick changed Shakespeare. Scholar Denise A. Walen, curator of Folger exhibition, Here is a Play Fitted, looks at Garrick's 1754 adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet" in which the young lovers get to speak to each other one more time before their tragic death, an idea that Baz Luhrman later adapted for his 1996 film. With actors Michael Goldsmith and Kate DeBuys.
Several years ago my wife and I saw "Romeo and Juliet" at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. It starred Phoebe Cates, and was set in the Little Italy neighborhood in the 1930s.
If I recall the tomb scene correctly, Romeo had taken the poison, and was dying, when Juliet awakened. For a moment, he saw her awaken with all the unimaginable emotions on his face - surprise, joy and horror. He had only that moment before he died. In her own confusion and devastation, Juliet shot herself.
Baz Luhrman's 1996 re-interpretation of this tomb scene works for me. The dying Romeo and the astounded Juliet have a few last words together, which makes for a tragic yet tender ending.
Denise Walen points out: There is definitely something wrong with this picture. If David Garrick actually had the two lovers position themselves like this and carried on relatively animatedly, I wouldn't have liked it. It would've diluted the tragic denouement of the scene.
Here is how William Shakespeare wrote it:
ROMEO
O my love! my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there. Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favour can I do to thee, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that, I still will stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again: here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death! Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide! Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark! Here's to my love!
[Drinks]
O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
[Dies]
[ Enter, at the other end of the churchyard, FRIAR LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and spade ]
FRIAR LAURENCE
Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there?
BALTHASAR
Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend, What torch is yond, that vainly lends his light To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern, It burneth in the Capel's monument.
BALTHASAR
It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master, One that you love.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Who is it?
BALTHASAR
Romeo.
FRIAR LAURENCE
How long hath he been there?
BALTHASAR
Full half an hour.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Go with me to the vault.
BALTHASAR
I dare not, sir My master knows not but I am gone hence; And fearfully did menace me with death, If I did stay to look on his intents.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Stay, then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me: O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.
BALTHASAR
As I did sleep under this yew-tree here, I dreamt my master and another fought, And that my master slew him.
FRIAR LAURENCE
Romeo!
[Advances]
Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains The stony entrance of this sepulchre? What mean these masterless and gory swords To lie discolour'd by this place of peace? [Enters the tomb] Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too? And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour Is guilty of this lamentable chance! The lady stirs.
[JULIET wakes]
JULIET
O comfortable friar! where is my lord? I do remember well where I should be, And there I am. Where is my Romeo?
[Noise within]
FRIAR LAURENCE
I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep: A greater power than we can contradict Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away. Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead; And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee Among a sisterhood of holy nuns: Stay not to question, for the watch is coming; Come, go, good Juliet,
[Noise again]
I dare no longer stay.
JULIET
Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
[Exit FRIAR LAURENCE]
What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end: O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop To help me after? I will kiss thy lips; Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, To make die with a restorative.
In reading these lines, I see, once again, the extraordinary complexity and frenzy of the tomb scene. Friar Laurence was the engineer, and it was all going horribly wrong. He thought to save Juliet at least, but even this he couldn't pull off.
Some day, if I ever get the chance to stage this play myself, I will have had the benefit of Garrick's, Luhrman's, the Goodman Theater's adaptations, plus scores more, at my disposal.
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