Thompson: I think that it may not be Shakespeare who was being kind to Henry but that our perception of "bluff King Hal" came from the Victorian era and their view of history as the history of great men. No doubt this image was redoubled in the popular imagination of the last century by the gargantuan Henry of Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) stalking the corridors to get to Anne Bullen and even Sid James in Carry on Henry (1971) as "a great guy with his chopper." We can thank David Starkey and his ilk for our subtler understanding of Henry's tyranny.
Even in the reign of James I, it would have been dangerous for Shakespeare to portray the tyranny of the late Queen's father. It was a balancing act for Shakespeare: how to bring true praise to the king and censure the tyranny. It is significant that the play ends before Henry begins the madness of beheading his wives. In the second half of the play Henry is "rescued" by the arrival of Cranmer and Elizabeth. I prefer to think that Shakespeare is being as critical as he could be in the circumstances. The play is saying that the court of Henry VIII is a very dangerous place to be and even now it would be dangerous to present much beyond the birth of Elizabeth.
The part of Katherine is powerfully drawn and immensely sympathetic--Shakespeare strengthens her character notably in relation to the accounts in the chronicle sources he used; how did you capitalize on this?
Doran: The other element that my research threw up was that, in 1613, with a potential Catholic marriage for King James's son, Prince Henry, on the cards, there was a political agenda to putting on the play in the first place. In the rather Augustan policy that James had of trying to reconcile England with Spain post-Armada, one of the things that a play might do was to tackle the issue of the Spanish Queen, Katherine of Aragon, and what had happened to her. The play virtually canonizes Katherine of Aragon and that seemed to me to be an intensely political gesture.
I read a piece of research by Professor Glynne Wickham that it was possible that the play had been staged at Blackfriars theater (we know the play was also staged at the Globe because it was during a production of it that the Globe burnt down), in which case the scene of Katherine's trial would have played in the very room in which the trial had actually happened (before it was converted into a theater). That must have been an intensely political act in itself.
Thompson: I'm afraid I didn't refer to the historical sources in relation to Katherine but directed from the play. The sources are useful when they give you something not in the play rather than when they give you less. You can only play what's written, of course.
Interestingly, Shakespeare weakens the drama of the masque. In George Cavendish's Thomas Wolsey, Late Cardinall, His Lyffe And Deathe, when asked to identify which of the disguised masquers is the king, Wolsey chooses the wrong man: Sir Edward Neville. Neville was a great sportsman, the David Beckham of his day, and Henry's jousting champion. Like the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, inviting superstars from the world of football to play against a Chechen team including himself as center-forward, Henry would joust with Sir Edward Neville on his team.
Henry was delighted that Wolsey was deceived into choosing the disguised Neville and burst into laughter. Why did Shakespeare dilute the drama of the scene so that Wolsey found out the king straightway? Perhaps many in his audience would have known this mistaking and it would have added to the idea that "All Is True." Perhaps some even remembered that Edward Neville, like Buckingham before him, was beheaded by Henry VIII on the testimony of another. There was danger even in friendship with Henry.
Shakespeare's other late plays (Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest) rely on magic for their resolution but Henry VIII is resolutely earthbound apart from Katherine's vision in Act 4 Scene 2. Many modern productions cut this scene; how and why did you stage it?
Doran: We tried various things. I referred earlier to the canonization of Katherine because it seems to me that she learns within that scene some of the lessons that will allow her into heaven. At Kimbolton, where she is in her declining years, her steward Griffith has given her an account of Wolsey's death and she becomes vicious about Wolsey, whom she counts her enemy. Griffith, rather astonishingly, points out what a good man Wolsey was, the institutions that he patronized and funded, and says one of the wonderful lines in the play: "Men's evil manners live in brass, their virtues We write in water." Having counted Cardinal Wolsey's good points, Katherine responds, "After my death I wish no other herald, No other speaker of my living actions, To keep mine honour from corruption, But such an honest chronicler as Griffith." It's as if she has learned both patience and tolerance, and those two lessons allow her out of purgatory and into heaven. Her waiting maid is even called Patience.
In the staging of that scene we decided ultimately that, in a stage the size of the Swan space, Jane Lapotaire's expression alone could create a greater vision than I could summon up. We put a shaft of light onto her as she opened her eyes, saw her vision and then woke up and told us what she had seen. In the context of the production we were doing that seemed sufficient.
Thompson: I staged it as Katherine's vision. She is near death and she sees angels. Our angels gained height from the reverse of the platform used in Anne's coronation: as Anne was raised up to be queen so Katherine could ascend to heaven.
Why would it be cut? Making a Catholic Queen the emotional center of a play is a political act on Shakespeare's part. Her vision reinforces both her religion and her special nature. It is the Catholic that is welcomed to eternal happiness by spirits of peace. Katherine is the spiritual heart of the play. She refuses to do anything that is not the truth. This makes her a powerful figure. Like Hermione, like Innogen, she holds fast to the truth; and, like Hermione and Thaisa, she dies. For Katherine there is no resurrection, of course, only loss. That a Spanish Queen and the mother of Mary Tudor was being honored in this way on the Jacobean stage is remarkable.
The spiritual nature of the scene is not normally found in a history play but it does connect Henry VIII to Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and Pericles. There is a criticism of Henry VIII that on the one hand it's not enough like Henry V to be a proper history, and on the other that it is a pity that it is not more of a romance like The Winter's Tale. It is what it is and the romance elements are fascinating.
Like the later plays there is a lost mother, sinned against but pure; a ruler, blind to sin, who learns to trust truth; and a new daughter who provides hope for a glorious future.
There is a curious amalgam of Leontes and Camillo, the reformed man and the wise counselor, in Wolsey and Cranmer. I toyed with the idea of doubling the roles and casting one actor in both parts. At the end of the third act Wolsey bids farewell to the hopes of court and vows to rely upon his integrity to heaven. In the fifth act a new man arrives, Cranmer. He is to be housed in the Tower on the testimony of others. Cranmer welcomes the trial and relies on his truth and honesty to see him through. Fortunately for Cranmer, of course, Henry favors him and gives him his token for protection. In terms of the late plays the Leontes journey from sin to humility is taken by Wolsey/Cranmer.
The play offers a running commentary on events through various anonymous characters such as the "Gentlemen," "Old Lady," and so on; how important are they and what do you think they're supposed to represent?
Doran: The Old Lady in particular is very important in providing a cynical note. There's an extraordinary moment where she tells Henry VIII that Anne Bullen has given birth, and she so wants to impress the King and to gain from the King's opinion of her that she says, "Ay, ay, my liege, And of a lovely boy." Henry in our production gave whoops of joy and started dancing around, and then the Old Lady says " 'Tis a girl Promises boys hereafter." The sense that the character has a cynical edge was great fun to play. I had the late Cherry Morris in that role and she managed to catch that wry edge which is a very important element within the play.
Thompson: They are very important and they represent the truth: the reality. They puncture the glamour of the c
ourt and say what's really going on. The Lady fingers Anne's ambition despite the denials and is smart enough to both lie to Henry about the sex of his baby and tell him the truth. The Gentlemen have seen the comings and goings of court, the rises and falls. Their gossip is more real in some ways than the politicking of the court.
The play ends on the high point of the christening of the baby princess, the future Queen Elizabeth, in general peace and reconciliation; how are we supposed to understand and respond to the contradictory events we've witnessed--with a cynical shrug, feel-good patriotic fervor, or something more complex?
Doran: The final speech is absurd if you think of it in literal terms: there is Cranmer taking the baby Elizabeth, who will become Queen Elizabeth I, and projecting not only her future but also her death and the fact that King James will rise out of it. Also, in 1613, if this play was being performed around the wedding of James's daughter, also called Elizabeth, then he might have been projecting a future for her too. It's a difficult speech to get the tone of. You also have to remember the context for which it was written. It would be wrong to somehow try and subvert it by making it a fanatical aria, because at root it's a plea for the security of the state.
Henry VIII is only one monarch away from the Henry VI/Richard III sequence of history plays. In that tetralogy you have all the horror and instability of the Wars of the Roses, ending in the coronation of the new King Henry VII hoping to bring peace to the land. If you see Henry VIII as the last beat of that story--as the very next king (after Richmond becomes Henry VII)--then you understand the context in which he is determined that he will provide an heir for the country and stability for his kingdom. That helps you understand that final speech in the context of a desire to bring stability to a country that had been wracked by civil war for so long. If I get round to doing the Henry VI/Richard III plays I think it would be very interesting to play Henry VIII at the end of that cycle.
There is a heritage element with the Tudors, which you have to resist but you also have to be aware of, because by and large the audience does know the story. It's a story that we are told many times and has been very popular on film and television. At the very end of our production, as Anne's baby was being celebrated, Anne appeared at the back just before the lights went and she put her hand to her neck. It used to get gasps from the audience. It allowed the aspirational quality of Cranmer's speech to exist, but then added a health warning at the end of the play.
Thompson: I think it's something more complex. Cranmer actually gives highest praise to the one who comes after Elizabeth: Shakespeare's current king, James I. Henry's great failing is that he did not produce a healthy male heir and Cranmer is legitimizing Henry's legacy by making Elizabeth a sufficient heir.
It is significant that the play ends before the great terror and fervor of the Reformation--before the monasteries were dissolved and the churches whitewashed. Like the order from the Taliban to destroy the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the word went out to destroy the icons of England, and much of our religious heritage was obliterated with no less force than the dynamite of Afghanistan. And there was more cruelty and martyrdom to come, all in the name of the living God. Edward's Reformation, the Catholic Restoration under Mary and Elizabethan Settlement were reinforced with executions and imprisonments. In 1613 it was still in living memory.
Shakespeare grew up in a world shaped by those who had experienced the terror that had begun eighty years before. There were people still alive who were born in Henry's reign. The memory of the recession of the thirties still informs our political discourse today and someone born in 1964 came into a world shaped by the political resolution of the Second World War and benefited from the Welfare State, a response to the economic suffering of the depression. So Shakespeare, born in 1564, came into a world shaped by the Elizabethan Settlement and with a dread of civil strife.
The Jacobean audience would have known what came next: whether or not they regarded her as a Bird of Wonder, they would certainly remember that she was loved and feared.
We had a real baby stand in for Elizabeth. It humanized Henry and brought a remarkable focus from the audience. It was our own way of using the principle that "Pageantry causes you to forget that it's dangerous at court." However successful or otherwise the production had been, the wonder of a real baby brought generous applause.
SHAKESPEARE'S CAREER
IN THE THEATER
BEGINNINGS
William Shakespeare was an extraordinarily intelligent man who was born and died in an ordinary market town in the English Midlands. He lived an uneventful life in an eventful age. Born in April 1564, he was the eldest son of John Shakespeare, a glove maker who was prominent on the town council until he fell into financial difficulties. Young William was educated at the local grammar in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, where he gained a thorough grounding in the Latin language, the art of rhetoric, and classical poetry. He married Ann Hathaway and had three children (Susanna, then the twins Hamnet and Judith) before his twenty-first birthday: an exceptionally young age for the period. We do not know how he supported his family in the mid-1580s.
Like many clever country boys, he moved to the city in order to make his way in the world. Like many creative people, he found a career in the entertainment business. Public playhouses and professional full-time acting companies reliant on the market for their income were born in Shakespeare's childhood. When he arrived in London as a man, sometime in the late 1580s, a new phenomenon was in the making: the actor who is so successful that he becomes a "star." The word did not exist in its modern sense, but the pattern is recognizable: audiences went to the theater not so much to see a particular show as to witness the comedian Richard Tarlton or the dramatic actor Edward Alleyn.
Shakespeare was an actor before he was a writer. It appears not to have been long before he realized that he was never going to grow into a great comedian like Tarlton or a great tragedian like Alleyn. Instead, he found a role within his company as the man who patched up old plays, breathing new life, new dramatic twists, into tired repertory pieces. He paid close attention to the work of the university-educated dramatists who were writing history plays and tragedies for the public stage in a style more ambitious, sweeping, and poetically grand than anything that had been seen before. But he may also have noted that what his friend and rival Ben Jonson would call "Marlowe's mighty line" sometimes faltered in the mode of comedy. Going to university, as Christopher Marlowe did, was all well and good for honing the arts of rhetorical elaboration and classical allusion, but it could lead to a loss of the common touch. To stay close to a large segment of the potential audience for public theater, it was necessary to write for clowns as well as kings and to intersperse the flights of poetry with the humor of the tavern, the privy, and the brothel: Shakespeare was the first to establish himself early in his career as an equal master of tragedy, comedy, and history. He realized that theater could be the medium to make the national past available to a wider audience than the elite who could afford to read large history books: his signature early works include not only the classical tragedy Titus Andronicus but also the sequence of English historical plays on the Wars of the Roses.
He also invented a new role for himself, that of in-house company dramatist. Where his peers and predecessors had to sell their plays to the theater managers on a poorly paid piecework basis, Shakespeare took a percentage of the box-office income. The Lord Chamberlain's Men constituted themselves in 1594 as a joint stock company, with the profits being distributed among the core actors who had invested as sharers. Shakespeare acted himself--he appears in the cast lists of some of Ben Jonson's plays as well as the list of actors' names at the beginning of his own collected works--but his principal duty was to write two or three plays a year for the company. By holding shares, he was effectively earning himself a royalty on his work, something no author had ever done before in England. When the Lord Chamberlain's Men collected their fee for performance at court in the Christmas season
of 1594, three of them went along to the Treasurer of the Chamber: not just Richard Burbage the tragedian and Will Kempe the clown, but also Shakespeare the scriptwriter. That was something new.
The next four years were the golden period in Shakespeare's career, though overshadowed by the death of his only son, Hamnet, age eleven, in 1596. In his early thirties and in full command of both his poetic and his theatrical medium, he perfected his art of comedy, while also developing his tragic and historical writing in new ways. In 1598, Francis Meres, a Cambridge University graduate with his finger on the pulse of the London literary world, praised Shakespeare for his excellence across the genres:
As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labours Lost, his Love Labours Won, his Midsummer Night Dream and his Merchant of Venice: for tragedy his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo and Juliet.