To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown

On December 10^th, we all got together for a read-through of Richard II. And now that my semester is over, I’m turning my attention to trying to understand this play. It’s my opinion that a common trap in working on a play is getting caught up in details that are really beside the point. Forcing the action into a setting, trying to replicate some staging conditions – things that have little to do with the one thing which we can actually be pretty certain of – the text. That’s why I started Poor Shadows in the first place. I want everything to grow out of, and be supported by the text. Not that we’ll never do a conceptual piece, mind you – I think that will definitely happen, and I have a few things in mind – but those ideas are based on bringing out elements in the text.

Anyway, back to Richard II. Apparently, Sam Taylor Coleridge took a look at this play a long time ago and decided that Richard had certain bad qualities that led to his downfall, and that all of those qualities were “feminine.” It seems that this idea has been basically unchallenged ever since. So, when you see a production of this play, very often what you get is a hyper-feminine Richard. Ben Whishaw in the Hollow Crown is an example, but Derek Jacobi’s was just as twee. Fiona Shaw even played the role. I think this feminine Richard concept is a trap. And it seems inconsistent with the relationship between Richard and his queen. I believe she has genuine affection and respect for him. This is not the same relationship that Edward II and Isabella have. Despite Bolingbroke’s suggestion that Bushy and Green have “made a divorce” between the king and queen – which I think is a lie anyway, based on his irregular verse in the speech, she seems to think he is a model king, and even compares him to a lion.

What is this play really about? I think it’s summed up in this one line from III.ii: “To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown.” This is a play about shrewd steel, or realpolitik, finally challenging the golden crown, the divine right of kings. It is a play about the transition from the medieval to the modern; from the poet king, whose court contained Chaucer, Gower, Clanvowe, and others, to Henry IV, a no-nonsense king who has no poetry in him. Focusing on the old (and not particularly textual) Richard-is-a-woman trope turns the attention away from the real point of the play, in my opinion.

Now, all that being said… this is just my interpretation, and Aaron and Christina will each have their own. I think it would be interesting if one of our Richards in this production played the role in a traditional way, while the other production focused on the medieval-modern switch. Then we could really see how differently the play works on the stage with the two interpretations. But so far, Aaron and I have avoided making strategic choices like that (Aaron called that sort of approach “collusion,” which I think is pretty apt). It will be interesting to see how it develops in rehearsal.

Richard II

My first semester of grad school draws to a close. As I drink my morning coffee and get ready to resume work on a paper I'm writing about censorship of the deposition scene in Richard II, I decided to spend a little more time on my lines for the next production I'll be working on, which, not coincidentally, is Richard II.  That led me to further procrastinate by writing this blog post. I've neglected the old blog while I was in school. Directing Doctor Faustus and playing Coriolanus while in grad school (and working) has kept me running for the past few months, so I'm indulging myself with a blog post this morning.

A few words about my new company, Poor Shadows of Elysium, are in order, I guess. I call it "my" company not because I'm trying to claim credit for all that's happening. I have a great team of people working with me on this, each of whom are invaluable. I call it mine because I started it, I gathered the team, and as of right now, the vision and direction are mine. If what we do is a success, it will be a credit to everyone involved. If it's a failure, the blame can only be mine, because I can't imagine a better group of people to help me realize my vision. I hope this company will continue to grow and evolve.

When I started working on RII, I had a few preconceptions about the play that have already changed, without even having the first reading yet. Chiefly, I thought the conflict in the play was ambiguous, that it wasn't clear whether Bolingbroke or Richard was the hero. After scanning the lines, I don't believe that any more. Richard's verse is very regular, overall, even when he's obviously in a heightened emotional state (which is always). Bolingbroke's verse, on the contrary, is full of irregular endings. By the time I finished scanning Act III, Scene 1, when Bolingbroke speaks to Bushy and Green before they are executed, I felt strongly that Bolingbroke was a lying bastard. Although he gives reasons for the executions, I think they're bullshit. His eyes are on the prize, and he's Machiavelling his way to the throne.

In our production of RII, we're taking an unusual approach. I wanted to do a coin flip at the start of each show, to determine which actor plays Richard and which actor plays Bolingbroke. This was inspired in part by the 1973 John Barton production, where two actors switched the role every night, and in part by the ASC's recent coin-toss Hamlet (the coin toss determined whether they would do the quarto version or the folio version of the play.) Also, honestly, I wanted Poor Shadows' first production to be a bold one. In many ways, I think the play is about how the crown wears the king - how it affects both Richard and Henry, and how interchangeable they are. Because of the coin flip and what the play says about the two characters who wear the crown, I wanted an actor who was very different from me in the other role. I think we have that in Aaron Black.

Aaron has an MFA in acting from The New School. Obviously, he's very well-versed in acting techniques. My approach to acting, by contrast, is almost entirely based on the text. I sometimes supplement my work on a play by bringing in things outside the script, but the things I consider are normally things that might have been known to the audience, such as the historical context of the action of the play, or stories that were in existence at the time the play was written. I can't really speak to what Aaron's process is, exactly, but I am very excited by the knowledge that he will make very different choices than I will, and people will get a very different show depending on which way the coin toss goes. I can't wait to see what he comes up with. This is really going to be fun.

It's also worth mentioning that this is going to make things very interesting for our entire cast. To the extent they interact with one of the kings, they're going to have the opportunity to play the same character two different ways. I'm sure I'll write about some of their discoveries once rehearsal starts. While I'm on the subject - what a fantastic cast we have.

I think our production is going to reveal a lot about the play. This is what I love.