Final Part III: RSC- The Histories

Well, you said we could choose a funny clip.

I had actually never seen these performers before and I think they are actually pretty good. When I was debating whether to include the Macbeth clip or the Histories clip, it was a tough choice. However, I ended up choosing the one about the histories because a lot of our semester was spent focusing on them. This clip demonstrates the confusion and the constant passing of the crown between different monarchs of England. The actors use the analogy that it is like a football game, constantly changing direction with penalties and fouls all over the place. The only part I did not really agree with at first was that King Lear came in so late, from what we know of him, he is supposed to be one of the earliest kings – they did cover their backs by calling him a “fictional character” and dismissing him completely. However, it seems like most of the order of kings is a bit mixed up in this scene. While this group of actors spends their time making fun of Shakespeare’s plays, I believe that they also admire his writings. It is just their way of getting the rest of the world involved in his work.

1. Despite what I said, do you believe that their representations of Shakespeare’s plays are insulting?

2. How accurate are the Reduced Shakespeare’s Company version of events?

3. Shakespeare’s history plays are meant to please the current royalty, how does Shakespeare accomplish this with such a touchy subject matter?

Blogging

What I like most about the blogging assignments is that they create a space in which we get to express ideas that we aren’t always able to get to in our class discussions. It’s a valuable tool: I kind of use it as a way to gradually tease out ideas that aren’t fully formulated, but that keep popping up in my head as I read each play. What I like most about it, however, is that I get to read about what other people think of the plays. From others’ posts I’ve come across questions that I would never have thought of asking and arguments that supplement my understanding of our readings.
In my blogs I mostly focus on Shakespeare’s depiction of women, how he creates his characters’ identities, and how he represents power relations. When writing the posts I don’t remember feeling that they were particularly political, but reading them all in succession makes me realize that my writing comes from a particular standpoint: it’s mostly influenced by a feminist focus on women, but it is also concerned with the character’s positions within the societies they inhabit. This is a little surprising to me because I usually focus on more methodological aspects of writing and not so much on broader themes; it also makes me realize how much my education has influenced my stance on a variety of subjects. I don’t think 3 blogs is enough for me to recognize a change in my writing, though. Perhaps by the end of the semester I’ll focus more on other aspects of Shakespeare’s writing.
There are two things I think are worth revisiting: the first is the examination of cycles and progress in the second tetralogy. By the end of Henry IV I began to see a recurrence of a central powerful character being surrounded by a group of people who try to influence his actions. In Richard II the king was surrounded by older advisors who didn’t really want to give up the power they had accumulated while Richard had been young; In Henry IV Hal surrounds himself with thieves and liars and members of the lower classes; in Henry V we find that Hal now surrounds himself with religious men. In each case the group determines the identity of the individual: when Hal surrounded himself with rogues, he was seen as a rogue. When he surrounds himself with gentlemen and seeks counsel from an archbishop, he’s a great religious leader. A contrasting example of progress would be how Hal casts Falstaff out in order to assume his role as a serious King. I also notice that each instance of progress is actually an act of manipulation and violence, which makes me question whether the “progress” is really worth it. The second is that I see a parallel between themes in Shakespeare’s comedies and these history plays. In both the characters in power try to make it seem as if they don’t have as much power as they actually do by siphoning responsibilities off to others: the Duke makes Isabella decide not to kill Angelo, and Henry V makes the Archbishop decide to go to war. Also, both Measure for Measure and Richard II illustrate a historical shift in methods of social control: both plays move from punishing through spectacle (Angelo wanting to execute Isabella’s brother; Bolingbroke killing Richard’s associates) to disciplining through surveillance (the Duke disguising himself as a friar in order to effectively manipulate and “direct” Angelo & maybe even his marriage proposal; York insisting on telling the technically illegitimate king that his son is a traitor, which is a kind of internalization of the surveillance.) Hal exemplifies this idea: he goes from using spectacle to legitimate his king-ness (killing Hotspur) to using surveillance (making sure people know that he’s cut himself off from Falstaff.) … Random, but I think I may like the comedies more than the histories.

History Plays

So far, Richard II has been an interesting read. I find it to be far denser and involved than the comedies we’ve read thus far, but that is only to be expected, seeing as it is a history play. It is also far more involved in political details and information than most of the tragedies I have read so far—Hamlet and Macbeth come easily to mind. I believe that this—this (at times exhaustive) focus and attention to detail and complicated politics that separates history plays from Shakespeare’s tragedies. True, all of his plays contain complex plots and involve in-depth glimpses into disparate politics, but none have focused entirely upon the politics involved—there are deeper themes, to which the politics take a background position. Tragedies are, in essence, focused on the tragedy—the personal tragedy, the inner anguish of the tragic characters and their falls, from grace or from happiness (often both.) There is more of a personal element to the story, more exploration of the characters, due to this focus.

Histories, on the other hand, are entirely built around the shifting and changing of political alliances and strengths, more concerned with the moving of the outside world than with the shifts and changes within a character’s inner world. Richard II basically swamps the audience with information about the political power-structure of the time, and how this structure changes; what events occur to cause this change and why being the main concern of the play thus far. There are fleeting personal glimpses into the characters’ lives, the most prominent being the Queen’s scenes—her stake in the actions of the play are represented as purely personal, purely emotional, perhaps as a relief or counterpoint to the main thrust of the play, much like the comedic scenes found throughout Shakespeare’s tragedies. This is another difference between this history and the other plays we have read—usually there are figures used solely for comedic relief, some rough humour to tide the audience over before delving back into the meat of the play. In Richard II, the only scenes that differ from the dense political action are those of the Queen, in that they are driven purely by emotion, and not the political powers and motivations that drive every other character in the play. She, then, is the relief, the counter-point, the break in the action to give the audiences a breather, perhaps underlining the serious matter of the play that it possesses no rude clowns or jesters—simply the young, pure Queen to take our minds, however briefly, off of the dire circumstances portrayed in the rest of the play.