It has to bring home the reality of how politics can destroy the innocent. We had images in our heads of Kim Phuc, the little girl running from the napalm attack in South Vietnam—moments where innocence had been caught in the crossfire. It felt as though that was a key moment to deliver: to stop the play running away with itself as a political satire.
Rourke: That’s interesting because after King John I went and did a Mamet play called The Cryptogram at the Donmar Warehouse, which had an enormous part for a ten-year-old boy in it as well. It was my year for working with ten-year-old boys! They were fantastic. It was one of my greatest experiences working with those lads on that role because I think Shakespeare understood something—and I realized through the play—about the incredible power of a child who is just at the point of losing his childhood. When I worked with those two boys on that play they were nine and ten. I saw them a year later and they were getting ready to be teenagers, they weren’t children anymore. There’s something about those liminal points in our lives, when we are between one thing and the next, that give this incredible dramatic potency. On press night there was an amazing moment when one of the boys went completely method, and when Hubert thrust the warrant at him was so angry he knocked it out of his hand—in the moment. He was feeling it so powerfully. Thank goodness that the actor playing Hubert was so ready to respond!
There was another great moment: I will never forget seeing an audience member, when Hubert was standing over Arthur with the poker, ready to blind him, holding his programme in front of his face because he couldn’t bear it. You really believed it.
In the play, Arthur throws himself off a high wall in order to escape imprisonment and dies. It was very important to us that we could actually fly the child—drop them and fly them forward—so we could do the descent. We worked really hard technically on that moment. There was a great moment where you thought that we’d dropped him because it happened so quickly and then he moved and groaned in pain and it was a great theatrical shock to people.
I remember when I was a kid, down at the bottom of my street there was a wall where the ground gradually fell away then inclined, and we’d dare each other to drop higher and higher off it. There’s a very basic, very human thing about a child misjudging a height. As we grow up we learn that we shouldn’t touch hot things, and that cold things are cold, we learn what distance means, and what we should do with our body. Arthur is not pushed. He doesn’t jump out of some kind of strange, tormented suicide bid. He genuinely believes he can have a go and jump it and survive, when he clearly can’t. I find that enormously moving.
The play’s language is dense and almost impenetrable at times; did your actors encounter problems in understanding what it meant and more importantly conveying that meaning to the audience?
Doran: We spent a lot of time unpicking the text with the entire company, and then seeing how the conflicting rhetoric worked. Once the company had got an understanding of what the language meant, they really began to enjoy how people used argument: how they deployed and marshaled their arguments rhetorically. You could see how people twisted argument and in the Swan, which is a sort of debating chamber, it became particularly exciting; the sheer thrill of an argument well debated. We had great verse-speakers like Guy Henry, Geoffrey Freshwater (Philip of France), Kelly Hunter, Jo Stone-Fewings (the Bastard), and John Hopkins as the dauphin, so the verse was in very good hands. If you didn’t attend to the complexities of that verse, and if you didn’t have somebody as brilliant as David Collings playing Cardinal Pandulph, then I could see how you could get lost, or as the Bastard says at one point, be “bethumped with words.” But there is great wit in how the argument shifts. When it suits him Pandulph can turn an argument completely upside down.
Rourke: We did a lot of work on this in rehearsal. I had a friend of mine who is a barrister and a public speaking champion called Benet Brandreth who did some fantastic work with us. What he said about rhetoric is that it is the art of persuasion. What’s really interesting about the play is that people have the ability to persuade other people of their position; it’s a real muscular force within the play. The way we use rhetoric to steady, or to change, or to state a claim—all of those persuasive grounds are really fascinating. It would be great if rhetoric was to come back more strongly into the theater and a passion for how ideas work would be reignited—I think that is starting to happen now. In 2006 when we did the play something in British politics was deeply unrhetorical. Politics wasn’t about persuading people of your position; it was about continually canvassing opinion, trying to move along as smoothly as possible and taking as many people with you as you could. It was a different kind of persuasion; it was following the latest opinion poll. There wasn’t anyone taking a stand, or saying “This is what I think, what do you think? Let’s argue the point.” That had blown out of our culture a little bit, but I hope it’s returning now.
The play is sometimes seen as a debate as to who should be king and who the hero is; did you see it in those terms or as a more complicated exploration of legal and moral rights of inheritance and political legitimacy?
Rourke: I really hate the term “problem play”; I think “problem play” is a term used by literary critics to analyze plays which do not have clear protagonists. The term problem play is as unhelpful to a play like King John as it is unhelpful to a play like Measure for Measure. Audiences don’t always need a clear protagonist. Audiences are interested in moral relativism, in exploring behavior and choice through a clearly defined context. One thing that King John has really got going for it is that it’s a terribly clear world. It’s so clear that you can have a character like the Bastard slide through it with his particular perspective. I was most interested in figuring it as a struggle for power, and what happens when you gain advantage and then can’t play it. Constance, John, France, even to an extent the Bastard, take up all the oxygen in the room in order to persuade people that they are right, to get their advantage and gain position.
The Bastard calls the nobles “distempered lords”; is he right? Do they place morality above patriotism or is that a smokescreen for “that smooth-faced gentleman, tickling commodity”?
Rourke: Within all Shakespeare’s plays you can see him asserting and reasserting his idea of Englishness. One of the things that is great in the writing of this play is that so many concepts (abstracts) are defined by people doing them badly, by Shakespeare showing us what they are not: motherhood; kingship; piety. Apart from the Bastard’s courage (and you could argue that was bloodlust) most things are defined by acts of rebellion, or departures from what is expected. So when the nobles remove themselves from loyalty to England we get a very clear and very beautiful overview in a rhetorical picture of what English loyalty is. Loyalty is more sharply defined by the lords rebelling than it is in their uneasy allegiance.
THE FAMOUS HISTORY
OF THE LIFE OF
KING HENRY
THE EIGHTH
KEY FACTS: HENRY VIII
MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Henry VIII (14%/81/9), Cardinal Wolsey (14%/79/7), Queen Katherine (12%/50/4), Duke of Norfolk (7%/48/5), Duke of Buckingham (6%/26/2), Lord Chamberlain (5%/38/7), Thomas Cranmer (4%/21/4), Duke of Suffolk (3%/30/4), Gardiner (3%/22/3), Earl of Surrey (3%/24/2), Sir Thomas Lovell (2%/21/4), Old Lady (2%/14/2), Surveyor (2%/9/1), Griffith (2%/13/2), Anne Bullen (2%/18/2), Cardinal Campeius (2%/14/3), Thomas Cromwell (2%/ 21/2), Lord Sands (2%/17/2).
LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 98% verse, 2% prose.
DATE: 1613. The first Globe Theatre burned down in a fire that started during a performance of the play on 29 June 1613. A letter by Sir Henry Wotton describes it as “a new play” at this time.
SOURCES: principally based on the third volume of Holinshed’s Chronicles, probably in the 1587 edition; the Stephen Gardiner sequence in Act 5 draws on John Foxe’s virulently anti-Catholic Actes and Monuments (perhaps in 1583 edition); John Stow’s Annals (1592) and John Speed
’s Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain (1611) also seem to have been consulted and there may be some influence from an earlier play in celebration of the birth of one of Henry VIII’s children, Samuel Rowley’s When you see me, You know me. Or the famous Chronicle Historie of king Henrie the eighth, with the birth and vertuous life of Edward Prince of Wales (1605).
TEXT: First Folio is only early text. Good quality of printing, probably set from a scribal transcript of the authorial manuscript.
LIST OF PARTS
PROLOGUE/EPILOGUE
KING HENRY VIII
QUEEN KATHERINE (of Aragon), Henry’s first wife, later Princess Dowager
CARDINAL WOLSEY, Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York
ANNE Bullen, later Queen, Henry’s second wife
CARDINAL CAMPEIUS, legate from the Pope
Thomas CRANMER, later Archbishop of Canterbury
Stephen GARDINER, the king’s secretary, later Bishop of Winchester
Bishop of LINCOLN
Lord CHAMBERLAIN
Lord CHANCELLOR, after Wolsey’s fall
Thomas CROMWELL, Wolsey’s servant and later secretary to the King’s Council
Duke of BUCKINGHAM
Duke of NORFOLK
Duke of SUFFOLK
Sons-in-law to Buckingham
Earl of SURREY
Lord ABERGAVENNEY
Lord SANDS
Sir Thomas LOVELL
Sir Henry (Harry) GUILDFORD
Sir Nicholas VAUX
Sir Anthony DENNY
GRIFFITH, Gentleman-usher to Katherine
WOMAN (who sings), attendant on Katherine
PATIENCE, attendant on Katherine
OLD LADY, friend to Anne
SECRETARY to Wolsey
BRANDON
SERGEANT-at-Arms
SURVEYOR to the Duke of Buckingham
Three GENTLEMEN
SCRIBE to the court
CRIER to the court
KEEPER of the door of the Council Chamber
MESSENGER at Kimbolton
Lord CAPUTIUS, an ambassador from the Emperor Charles V
PAGE to Gardiner
DR BUTTS, the king’s physician
PORTER and his MAN
GARTER King-at-Arms
SERVANT to Wolsey
Lord Mayor of London
Marquis of Dorset
Marchioness of Dorset
Old Duchess of Norfolk
Guards, Tipstaves, Halberds, Secretaries, Scribes, Bishops, Priests, Gentlemen, Vergers, Aldermen, Lords, Ladies, Women, Spirits, Attendants
List of parts
CHANCELLOR … fall in Act 3 Scene 2, it is announced that Sir Thomas More has been made Chancellor in Wolsey’s place; historically, More resigned before the coronation of Queen Anne, so the character who marches in the procession in Act 4 Scene 1 and speaks in Act 5 Scene 2 would have been Sir Thomas Audley, but he is unnamed in the text
The Prologue
[Enter Prologue]
I come no more to make you laugh: things now
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high, and working, full of state3 and woe:
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow
We now present. Those that can pity here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear:
The subject will deserve it. Such as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth too. Those that come to see
Only a show10 or two, and so agree
The play may pass, if they be still, and willing11,
I’ll undertake may see away their shilling12
Richly in two short hours13. Only they
That come to hear a merry, bawdy play,
A noise of targets15, or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat guarded with yellow16,
Will be deceived. For, gentle hearers, know17
To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting19
Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring20
To make that only true we now intend,
Will leave us never an understanding22 friend.
Therefore, for goodness’ sake, and as you are known
The first and happiest24 hearers of the town,
Be sad25, as we would make ye. Think ye see
The very persons of our noble story
As they were living: think you see them great27,
And followed with the general throng and sweat
Of thousand friends: then, in a moment, see
How soon this mightiness meets misery:
And if you can be merry then, I’ll say
A man may weep upon his wedding day.
[Exit]
Act 1 Scene 1
running scene 1
Enter the Duke of Norfolk at one door. At the other, the Duke of Buckingham and the Lord Abergavenny
BUCKINGHAM Good morrow, and well met. How have ye done
Since last we saw2 in France?
NORFOLK I thank your grace:
Healthful, and ever since a fresh4 admirer
Of what I saw there5.
BUCKINGHAM An untimely ague6
Stayed7 me a prisoner in my chamber when
Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,
Met in the vale of Andres.
NORFOLK ’Twixt Guînes and Ardres10:
I was then present, saw them salute on horseback,
Beheld them when they lighted12, how they clung
In their embracement as13 they grew together,
Which had they, what four throned ones could have weighed14
Such a compounded one?
BUCKINGHAM All the whole time
I was my chamber’s prisoner.
NORFOLK Then you lost
The view of earthly glory: men might say
Till this time pomp20 was single, but now married
To one above itself. Each following day21
Became the next day’s master22, till the last
Made former wonders its23. Today the French,
All clinquant24, all in gold, like heathen gods
Shone down the English; and tomorrow they25
Made Britain India26: every man that stood
Showed27 like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
As cherubins, all gilt: the madams28 too,
Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear
The pride upon them, that their very labour30
Was to them as a painting. Now this masque31
Was cried incomparable, and th’ensuing night32
Made it a fool and beggar33. The two kings,
Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst34,
As presence did present them: him in eye35,
Still him in praise, and being present both36,
’Twas said they saw but one, and no discerner37
Durst wag his tongue in censure38. When these suns —
For so they phrase39 ’em — by their heralds challenged
The noble spirits to arms, they did perform40
Beyond thought’s compass, that former fabulous story41,
Being now seen possible enough, got credit,
That Bevis43 was believed.
BUCKINGHAM O, you go far44.
NORFOLK As I belong to worship, and affect45
In honour honesty, the tract46 of ev’rything
Would by a good discourser lose some life47,
Which action’s self was tongue to. All was royal:
To the disposing of it nought rebelled49:
Order gave each thing view. The office did50
Distinctly his full function.
BUCKINGHAM Who did guide —
I mean, who set the body and the limbs
Of this great sport54 together, as you guess?
NORFOLK One, certes, that promises no element55
In such a business.
; BUCKINGHAM I pray you who, my lord?
NORFOLK All this was ordered by the good discretion58
Of the right reverend Cardinal of York59.
BUCKINGHAM The devil speed60 him! No man’s pie is freed
From his ambitious finger. What had he
To do in these fierce vanities62? I wonder
That such a keech63 can with his very bulk
Take up the rays o’th’beneficial sun64
And keep it from the earth.
NORFOLK Surely, sir,
There’s in him stuff that puts67 him to these ends:
For being not propped by ancestry, whose grace68
Chalks69 successors their way, nor called upon
For high feats70 done to th’crown, neither allied
To eminent assistants71, but spider-like,
Out of his self-drawing web, a gives us note72,
The force of his own merit makes his way
A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys
A place next to75 the king.
ABERGAVENNY I cannot tell
What heaven hath given him — let some graver77 eye
Pierce into that — but I can see his pride
Peep through each part of him: whence has he that,
If not from hell? The devil is a niggard80,
Or has given all before, and he81 begins
A new hell in himself.
BUCKINGHAM Why the devil,
Upon this French going out84, took he upon him,
Without the privity85 o’th’king, t’appoint
Who should attend on him? He makes up the file86
King John & Henry VIII Page 18