Peter Viney's Blog

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Owen Horsley
Designer Stephen Brimson Lewis
Costume Hannah Clark
Lighting Simon Spencer
Music Paul Englishby

Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-Upon-Avon
Saturday 21st May 2022. 13.15

CAST
Oliver Alvin- Wilson – Duke of York
Lucy Benjamin – Second Keeper / Tudor
Richard Cant – Lieutenant / King Lewis / 1st Keeper
Daniel J. Carver – Lord Clifford
Angelina Chudi- Lady Bona
Paola Dionisotti – Exeter
Felixe Forde – Richmond
Minnie Gale- Margaret
Ashley D. Gayne – Edward
Conor Glean – Young Clifford
Ben Hall- George Clarence
Arthur Hughes – Richard, Duke of Gloucester
Jack Humphrey- Rivers
Nicholas Karimi- Earl of Warwick
Al Maxwell- Vernon
Peter Moreton – Earl of Salisbury
Georgia-Mae Myers – French Messenger
Sophis Papadopoulos- Prince Edward
Mark Quartley- King Henry VI
Aaron Sidwell- The Son, plus Hastings as understudy.
Yasmin Taheri- Elizabeth
John Tate- Hastings
Ibraheem Toure- Mob Leader / 2nd Watchman / Soldier
Emma Tracey – Rutland
Daniel Ward -Duke of Buckingham
Benjamin Westerby – Duke ofSomerset

Ordinary people fill the stage for the crowd scenes.

SEE ALSO:
Henry VI- Rebellion (Henry VI- Part 2), RSC 2022

The RSC is presenting two plays together, Henry VI Parts 2 and 3, with added titles. They can be seen separately and on the same day, though they were poor in planning the sort of ‘Evening for Play 1 / Next day matinee for Play 2’ which travelling viewers like us prefer – one overnight stay.

This second one is NOT the John Barton and Peter Hall Wars of The Roses, it is Henry VI- Part 3. The Globe called it Edward IV a few years ago. The Dukes of York (with an added plural S) would fit too, as the Duke of York senior dominates the first half, and his son dominates the second. They probably thought of that and decided it would attract an audience interested in the dirty deeds of the current holder of the title.

It ties in with Henry VI – Rebellion with the same actors in the same roles where possible. Arthur Hughes gets added to the cast of Henry VI- Rebellion as Richard of Gloucester, the role he will be taking later in the season in Richard III.

As the newspapers discussed:

Apart from the Richard III’s society’s defence of the last Yorkist monarch, it is recorded that Richard III was a mighty warrior in combat. Hunchbacked he may have been, but he was a powerful physical presence.The logical conclusion of the ‘only black actors can play Othello‘ argument, would be that only white actors should be playing the medieval dukes of England, which is not happening here. Not that I think it should be, and Trevor Nunn was lambasted for casting white actors as white nobles in his Rose, Kingston production of John Barton and Peter Hall’s adaptation as Wars Of The Roses, as well as casting male actors as male characters in the story, which again, is not entirely happening here. I’m afraid Gregory Doran’s argument is paper thin. Followed to any kind of conclusion, it would be ridiculous to have women playing male roles. Henry VI Parts 2 and Part 3 are about males fighting in a male dominated world.

The performance

It starts with a bang- Cade and the rebels swoop out across the stage and disappear. Not in the text and a leftover from the preceding play, but it sets the mood. The hand-held black and white filming and projection is more effective in this second play, and the high-speed use of the diagonal walkways onto the thrust stage are as well done as I’ve ever seen it in the theatre. It’s so fast, that if seated next to the walkway, I’d fear getting an armoured man on top of me. That’s going to be lost on tour in most stagings.

You are aware within in five minutes that you’re watching the RSC at its full power peak. The musical accompaniment is powerful, the acting at top class. It just all gels. The main compliment to the director, is that the allegiances and enmities are brought across with great visual clarity, thus solving the play’s most difficult problem. Why was the earlier play so much less effective? I have no idea, but it comes together in this.

Colour blindness works perfectly. The Duke of York forms a tableaux with his three sons, Edward, George later Duke of Clarence and Richard, later Duke of Gloucester. I was quite annoyed at my Folio Society edition … the character name is RICHARD in the text until he’s made Duke of Gloucester and then switches to GLOUCESTER. It was confusing already. Anyway, the four men glare out at the audience, two black, two white, yet they exude ‘This is a family.’ You never question it.

Oliver Alvin-Wilson is a charismatic, dominating presence as the Duke of York. He can just sit staring balefully at Henry VI, flanked by his sons, and you can’t take your eyes off him.It will without doubt be one of the performances vying for ‘Best of 2022’ when I do my annual round-up in December.

Once he’s gone, and his very accurately modelled head stuck on a pike on the gates of York, Ashley D. Gayne takes his place as his son, Edward, Duke of York. A ferocious temper is expressed physically, but he can also cheerfully woo Elizabeth Grey in a later scene (Act III Scene 2). That’s a technically interesting scene, as it’s written with single line dialogue.

Ben Hall is George Duke of Clarence, switching sides to the Lancastrians. I’d forgotten he did that, and you see Richard watching him as he rejoins the Yorkists. The butt of Malmsey from Richard III is already in his mind. The Yorks, father and sons, have raucous bonding chants.

Then we have Arthur Hughes as Richard, Duke of Gloucester. As reviews note, ‘a star is born.’ We are looking forward with excitement to seeing what he does in Richard III. Arthur Hughes has his own genuine disability a withered arm, and declaims:

Gloucester: She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,
To shrink mine arm up like a withered shrub
To make an envious mountain on my back
Where sits deformity to mock my body
To shape my legs of an unequal size
To disproportion me in every part

Act III, Scene 2

However they leave it there. The genuine withered arm. No prosthetic hunchback. No distorted legs, so they stick to their principles of not pretending disability.

On the other side, there’s the increasingly feeble, weedy and disconnected Henry from Mark Quartely. As he gets closer to Monastic life we eventually see him naked and scourged.

The Lancastrian side is being led by Margaret of Anjou (Minnie Gale), another ferocious and vicious leader … and the original was. Years have passed, She has a son, Prince Edward (Sophie Papadopoulos).The older powerful Margaret role suits Minnie Gale much better than the angry teenager in Henry VI- Rebellion

As in Rebellion, having a Sophie Papadopoulos play Prince Edward, a young man of tender years, works. Paola Dionisotti as Exeter comes across far better than when she was terribly miscast as the Cardinal in the earlier play. Women can play old men well too.

Then there’s Young Clifford (Conor Glean) who saw his father murdered by the York family. Another brutal soldier bent on revenge. A striking scene is the murder of the child, Rutland, York’s youngest son who we have just seen playing with his father. Then when York is captured, he is taunted by Margaret and Young Clifford with the handkerchief stained with Rutland’s blood. Margaret has to hand it to York, and the addition here is blowing her nose on it first.

A comment on stage blood. People have streaks on armour, faces and hands, but they eschew the gushing blood that was popular a few years ago, when the washability of stage blood and the means of delivering it in spouts had improved, and gore was vastly over-used for a while … as in Richard III in the Trafalgar Studio production where the front three rows got liberally spattered.

Warwick (Nicholas Karimi) is the side changing kingmaker, again powerful acting (in spite of the Scottish accent which is mildly perplexing and I’d have lost … there isn’t the current normal range of accents in this production, so it stands out).

Aaron Sidwell, a great Cade in the first play, is understudying Hastings and doing it so well that he deserved the cast turning to point to him in the curtain call.

One reason why the play works better is that it is consistent in mood. There’s not the attempts at light and shade, such as the blind man who can see from the first play. Quieter bits are tragic. Shakespeare’s major comment on a civil war is the scene where Henry sees the aftermath of a battle. First a son has discovered he’d just killed his father in combat. Then a father realizes he has just killed his son. That’s why it’s called a civil war.

The battle scenes are executed in terrifying form – in some they use stop motion for the entire cast, and get it perfectly right too. There has been a great deal of work put into the fight scenes and the fight directors are due praise. There was no thesping about with meekly waved swords.

The one funny bit is King Lewis of France’s accent and foppish gestures (Richard Cant). Warwick has been sent by Edward IV to arrange marriage to Lady Bona of France. This is heavily cut, as in the original play Margaret is not only present, but has a lot of lines,

News arrives by messenger that Edward has just married the widow, Elizabeth Lady Grey (Yasmin Taheri). This infuriates Warwick and he changes to the Lancastrian side. Richard Cant does the King of France very well indeed, and Shakespeare knew accents were funny and when to use them and that the English found the French particularly amusing.

Oddly, though it has fewer funny bits than Rebellion, it got more laughs. Some were Margaret’s dismissive comments on Henry. Others were inadvertent. In these plays, Eleanor is sometimes addressed as Nell. Edward as Ned, and Richard as Dick. Young Prince Edward has to refer to Richard as ‘misshapen dick’ which got a good laugh. ‘Where’s your crooked (prodigy) Dicky?’ from Margaret is another. Those sort of lines are hard to deliver when you know a laugh is coming, but they were all delivered with aplomb.

The ending has Edward IV with his hopes for his new baby son, the future Prince in the Tower, Uncle Clarence admiring the baby too, and our eyes will be glued to Richard of Gloucester’s feigned reactions as his uncle.

It finished with a classic RSC / Globe short dance. Massive applause.

An afterthought. Henry VI Part 3 is dated as 1591, then Richard III as 1592/3. There are several pointers within this one to the fourth play in the tetralogy. Obviously there are Richard’s references to future revenge, but one short episode is almost shoehorned in, when Edward IV meets the young Earl of Richmond. As Richmond was to become the victor of Bosworth, then King Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth’s grandad, Shakespeare could only praise him. Was Richard III already framed in his mind? Or is the text we have a revision in the light of Richard III … the plays stayed popular for years and were revisited.

Edward IV: This pretty lad will prove our country’s bliss
His looks are full of peaceful majesty
His head by nature framed to wear a crown,
His hand to wield a sceptre, and himself
Likely in time to bless a regal throne

Act IV, Scene 6

I think even a watching Good Queen Bess might have thought Shakespeare was laying it on a bit thick. Richmond being young (and a pretty lad) was played by a woman, Felixe Forde. I assume the older Richmond will be a beefy bloke in Richard IIIt

Overall? A resounding 5 stars from us. I suspect the many fours from the critics were the two plays combined, a three and a five.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

Reviewers saw both plays

5 star
Mark Lawson, The Guardian *****
4 star
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ****
Patrick Marmion, Daily Mail ****
The Times **** (3 stars for the first play)
Gary Naylor, Broadway World, ****
Michael Davies, What’s On Stage ****
3 stars
Sam Marlowe, iNews ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

• Henry VI: Three plays, Globe on tour (Bath )
  – Harry The Sixth (Henry VI Part One)
  – The Houses of York & Lancaster (Henry VI Part Two)
  – The True tragedy of The Duke of York (Henry VI Part Three)
  
• The Wars of The Roses, trilogy, Kingston, 2015, Barton & Hall adaptation
• Henry VI (Henry VI Part I mainly)
• Edward IV (Henry VI Parts 2 & 3)
• Richard III (Richard III)
  
• Henry VI- Rebellion (Henry VI- Part 2), RSC 2022
• Henry VI – Wars of The Roses (Henry VI Part 3) RSC 2022

• LINK TO REVIEWS OF CAST AND CREATIVES

MARK QUARTELY
The Tempest, RSC 2016 (Ariel)
Strife by John Galsworthy, Chichester, 2016

BEN HALL
Henry V, Tobacco Factory, 2018 (Henry V)
Coriolanus, RSC 2017
Salomé, RSC 2017

OLIVER ALVIN-WILSON
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Young Vic, 2017 (Demetrius)

RICHARD CANT
Edward II, by Marlowe, Wanamaker 2019
My Night With Reg, Kevin Elyot, West End 2015