This England: The Histories (review)

This England: The Histories. By William Shakespeare. The Royal Shakespeare Company at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 17, 18 March 2001.

Once again the Royal Shakespeare Company mounted the eight history plays concerned with the Wars of the Roses. This time the collective title is This England: The Histories. The plays opened in historical order in the RSC's three different theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon: Richard II, directed by Steven Pimlott, opened in The Other Place in March 2000; both parts of Henry IV, directed by Michael Attenborough, opened in the Swan in April and June; Henry V, directed by Edward Hall, opened in the main house, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, in August. The three parts of Henry VI, subtitled "The War," "The Fall," and "The Chaos," which opened in November and December 2000 in the Swan and Richard III, which opened in February 2001, also in the Swan, were cast as a unit, with thirty actors and twenty-three technical staff, all under the direction of Michael Boyd, with design by Tom Piper. This tetralogy came to the Power Center of the University of Michigan for a short residency in mid-March 2001 for three cycles of the four plays--twelve sold-out performances in all.

The Power Center, a large house, was extensively re-configured for the productions, to duplicate, as accurately as possible, the staging in the Swan. Two banks of seats and two balconies were added, while the stage itself was thrust out into the audience. The rear of the stage was dominated by a large metal cylindrical structure suggesting the keep of a castle. Its two sturdy, clanging doors resounded on entrances and exits. Since most entrances and exits occurred through these back doors, the most common movement was characteristic of a thrust stage, from back to front rather than side to side from the wings. Many entrances were made through the audience as well. A second level of this keep represented a besieged castle that served as a balcony; for instance, Gloucester appeared there early in 3H6 looking like his portrait as Richard III in the National Portrait Gallery. Ghosts appeared there from time to time as well. On a third level, sound technicians worked in almost full view.

Several recurrent images pervaded all the plays. Props and scenic elements hung from above the stage: microphones, the red and white roses, and frequently ropes, ladders, and trapezes. The tetralogy began with the corpse of Henry V suspended above the stage on a horizontal wooden cross, which was later lowered into a trap at the front. When young Talbot was killed, he too was suspended over the stage in a sling, representing Icarus, as his father called him in death. Jack Cade entered on a trapeze and re-entered on a swing for his death scene in the Kentish garden. Battles were fought on dangling ladders, and ladders were ritualistically advanced to storm the keep at the rear.

Another recurrent image was feathers falling from above. When Joan of Arc defeated the Dauphin, a white feather fell, suggesting cowardice or ineffectuality. But both white and red feathers fell at other times to suggest (no doubt) the Yorks and Lancasters. When Richard prayed at Bosworth Field, he held up a white feather.

Like the feathers, stones and bones figured largely in the plays. In 1 Henry VI, Joan of Arc used a number of these objects in witchcraft. In the next play, Richard of Cambridge used stones to lay out the familiar genealogy of Edward's seven sons to convince Warwick and others of his claim to the throne. In the final play, the harridan Margaret announced her entry by throwing a bag of something at the feet of Queen Elizabeth, and then unpacked the bones of her son Edward, reconstructing his skeleton. Later in the play, when she was teaching the other women to curse Richard, she handed the bag to Queen Elizabeth to "leave the burthen of it all...