ramblings on the ESC history cycle -- part two of four
And a nifty new icon to boot. With this entry it should probably be a red rose but I don't have one. ;)
Anyway, you know the drill by now, I imagine. The notes in the running commentary are a bit more embellished this time -- they're not word for word what I wrote, and some of them I expanded on later.
Buckle your seat belts -- you're in for a looooooooong ride...
You know, the opening credit sequence (the montage of stuff from the series) is rather daft. What with all the screaming and fist-pumping and all.
The production opens with everyone singing a very folky-sounding song about "Harry le Roy." Where's that come from? It's cool! I should like to learn it...
The opening speech really is great. Intestine shock and all.
Heh, they kept in the "fourteen hundred years ago" line.
"Irregular and wild Glendower"?
Westmorland's pretty effete, too.
I've always wondered what exactly Henry is up to here, all things considered -- especially given that he seems to know what everyone else on stage does anyway...
They cut the night-tripping fairy exchange! Of course, I wouldn't want TooMuchCaffeine!Percy as a son either, so I can hardly blame them...
Oh, there's the unthrifty son speech again. You know, he just said that in Richard II 5.6 so I'm not sure why we need to hear it again.
The next scene opens with a bald guy playing the fife and a random scantily clad woman picking up her things. Heh.
Hal's receding hairline is distracting.
Ah, this play takes me back to the first days of my study of Shakespeare (it was the first history I read, and I was just about the only person in my class who liked it). It's rather nice.
Ewwwwwww...Lincolnshire bagpipe.
Love Falstaff emptying the dregs out of the bottles on the floor into a glass, taking a swig, and exclaiming "I must give over this life!"
I hate these long shots. You can't see anything.
Hey, the air conditioning went off just when Hal started his soliloquy!
"Herein will I imitate the sun" is really quite striking with the Richard/Hal double -- all kinds of associations there.
Why are they singing "Zadok the Priest" in the background?
Aumerle becomes Worcester. Hrm. That's sorta neat.
I can't decide if I like the regionally accurate accents or not.
Percy is so on crack.
I have to say this interp changes the feel of this speech (the popinjay one) -- Hotspur doesn't really come off as a particularly adept soldierly type.
I guess this is why they cut that "theme of honor's tongue" business.
I like Henry a lot better here than I did in Richard II.
Okay, don't closeup on Hotspur please. I'd like to not have nightmares.
Henry's expression while smacking Hotspur down is hilarious.
Yeah, I definitely like Henry better now.
Actually, Hotspur's acting is great, when he's not talking. (Love his expression at "My lord Northumberland, we license your departure with your son.")
Hotspur's lecturing of Worcester and Northumberland is hilarious.
Andrew Jarvis (Hotspur) really does a good job conveying that once Hotspur gets onto something he is constitutionally unable to let it go.
I really do think he's playing Hotspur as deranged. Northumberland and Worcester really do appear to have their hands full with this guy but on the other hand it makes their exploitation of him particularly icky.
They also cut the speech about plucking bright honor from the pale-faced moon which would seem to support my theory.
The music is still really dumb.
I think I'm going to start telling people who piss me off to hang themselves in their own heir-apparent garters.
Falstaff's "I am not John of Gaunt" line amuses me.
Hey, there's mohawk guy!
They do a lot of roughing up of the travellers they rob.
Falstaff has a very girly scream.
Hey, look, it's a bobby!
Hotspur looks like he's trying to do standup.
I love his insisting to the audience that "It's a good plot!"
He's such a dope. Such a dope.
Oh, here comes Lady Percy -- this doesn't bear thinking on!
She's weird-looking. And her costume looks like it was borrowed from "Little House on the Prairie."
Okay, I am seriously afraid of this scene.
Heh, I do like the tavern music.
Hal is an awful dancer.
"I shall command all the good lads of Eastcheap," indeed. We few, we happy few...
Wound-up Hal cracks me up. And I love his coat.
I rather think Francis the Tapster ought to sound like Pinky.
That's such a weird exchange.
I am amused by Hal's Hotspur impression.
Whatever Hal's got in that bottle, I want some of it.
Falstaff's contortionist fencing postures amuse me.
Mohawk Guy looks like Hotspur -- is that in fact Andrew Jarvis?
Why is the "This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker" routine making me think of "This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle"? It must be the delivery. Or the fact that I have completely cracked.
Hey, that guy standing behind Hal is Northumberland!
The "Send him back again to my mother" line is so tasteless. It's great. ;)
Hey, is Bardolph the same actor who played York? I think he is!
Hal's "We shall buy maidenheads as they buy hobnails" plays as bravado to mask his feelings of "Oh, shit, now I have to do stuff and actually attempt to carry off my brilliant scheme."
They actually lift up Falstaff on the "throne" in the play-within-a-play sequence without too much accompanying comic business.
I like the interrupting fanfares.
Falstaff's Euphuistic speech is hilarious.
"His name is..." "FALSTAFF!" I like the audience-response bit -- Falstaff, clearly, is rather fond of hearing his own name, I guess. I also like the accompanying trombone fart whenever they say it (Bardolph in this production being an accomplished trombonist).
One of the fun things about this scene in any production is hearing the actor who plays Hal impersonating his dad. Pennington's is pretty good, though the funniest I've seen is Keith Baxter's sendup of Gielgud in Chimes at Midnight.
"Eastcheap! Eastcheap! Eastcheap!" Heh.
The onstage audience responses in this are really well-done.
Falstaff is, thus far, keeping his defense of himself very stagey, rather than dropping the mask a bit as some Falstaffs do.
Poins gives the two-finger sign (the UK equivalent to the middle finger) at "banish Poins." ;)
The knock on the door comes too quickly, so we don't really get to see Falstaff's reaction to "I do, I will" (and it cuts to a long shot, too). Very annoying.
Hal looks surprisingly indulgent while saying it though.
Falstaff's indignance at "As fat as butter" amuses me.
Hal has a nice moment of ambivalence at the end of the tavern scene -- after everyone else leaves, he stands about looking pensive, goes over to the sleeping Falstaff and sort of pats him on the head, then closes the curtains and goes off snickering.
Glendower looks Stephen Fryish too. I don't think I like him much.
"Will they come when you do call for them?" gets a big laugh. (This was filmed with a live audience and occasionally you can hear them.)
Worcester is so good at looking long-suffering.
Dueling accents!
I love the way Hotspur says "Mincin' pooooooooooooetry!"
Mortimer is such a weenie.
I want to learn Welsh.
I'm thinking Lady Mortimer is so adamant about not leaving her husband because she can't understand him and thus can't figure out that he's a dork. Or maybe she's really saying "You're a ponce and I don't like you!" in Welsh.
Mortimer is such a weenie.
This is such an odd scene -- the whole play spins off into the middle of nowhere.
The Percies are both in need of a switch to decaf. I can only imagine what the kids would be like.
w00t! I love these father/son confrontation scenes.
Hal's first speech here, if it isn't actually a weird bit of doubletalk, sounds like one.
Yeah, Bolingbroke was wondered at -- in the sense of "That's what's passing for charisma these days?"
I'm not sure why they change that line to "The skipping Richard ambled up and down" -- it's not as though we've forgotten.
I love Henry's revisionist history.
"He hath more interest to the state than thou" is really insulting with this Hotspur.
Hal delivers the beginning of his long speech to Henry's back -- Henry turns at "I am your son."
For some reason Hal's speech is putting me in mind of Richard now...it may be the delivery.
Henry rather awkwardly offers to give his son a hug at the end of the scene, Hal steps back.
After the departure of Henry and Blunt Hal is left alone onstage -- he cries out, kicks the furniture, and storms out. Then the "INTERMISSION" sign comes up.
Falstaff is drinking raw eggs mixed with booze. That is the most disgusting thing I've seen in some time.
I get the impression with this Falstaff that when he talks about giving up the sauce he's half-seriously considering it.
And I love Bardolph as perpetually amused straight-man.
"Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life" -- best burn ever.
Mistress Quickly's look of astonishment at "Hostess, I forgive thee" amuses me.
Hrm, that "The land is burning" couplet sounds rather like Hal is trying to say the sort of thing he thinks ought to be said at such a time.
Falstaff appears to be horrified by the soundtrack.
That guy said "grievious"!
They appear to have crossed over into modernity at this point.
Nice delivery of "the nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales"!
Hee hee... "beaver." (I need to stop including Beavis and Butt-head moments in these running commentaries.)
Vernon has way too much fun with that speech.
You know, all things considered, the "mailed Mars" speech isn't as psychotic as I expected.
Who does the Archbishop of York remind me of? And who else does he play? And why is he so snide when he refers to "noble Westmorland"?
I am drowning in a sea of northern accents.
Heh, Blunt is now instantly badass. Even though he looks vaguely like Steve Bacic. At least he puts inflection in his lines.
Percy talking about his father here is rather interesting...
I like Hotspur's hand gesture at "Too indirect for long continuance."
Oh my...that hat. (NB: I think this refers to Falstaff's Inflated Palace Guard hat.)
"These are the cankers of long peace" -- eep.
I can't tell if Falstaff is being theatrical about his callousness toward his regiment, or just nasty.
King Henry appears to have gone old-school in his choice of armor -- a self-conscious anachronism?
Falstaff applauds Hal enthusiastically, and gives him a thumbs-up, when Hal gets all chivalrous and offers to fight Hotspur in single combat.
Hal sounds so nervous at "It will not be accepted."
Falstaff's "catechism" gets a round of applause.
The rebels are marching under a Union Jack -- the first time one has appeared. Interesting given their multinational (English, Scottish, Welsh) makeup...
Hotspur is doing the chainmail thing too. Which rather suits him.
What's supposed to be in those letters Hotspur doesn't read?
Swords? That is so 1403!
Hotspur takes Worcester's and Vernon's hands at "Let us embrace" -- nice ironic touch there.
Blunt looks vaguely like the guy who played Tiberius in I, Claudius.
You know, Douglas, turning up for a swordfight with no shirt on is a really bad idea.
"There's honor for you" *points at corpse* -- rather more striking when it's visual.
Falstaff's got a modern camouflage uniform on, Hal's in chainmail.
"Who art thou that counterfeit'st the person of a king?" A great line, in context.
Henry is a really lame fighter.
Hey! This is like the three-man lightsaber battle in Episode I!
Stage combat really doesn't come off well on TV, does it?
You know, you can't see a very valiant rebel of the name if you have your back to him. ;)
The music still sucks.
Falstaff never seems to actually do the "fake a coronary" business, during his encounter with Douglas, that I imagine him doing.
Wow, Hal is a conniving little prat! ;) During the fight with Hotspur, he loses his sword at one point, cowers in fear -- which read to me like he was feigning to psych out Hotspur -- then Hotspur decides to be sporting and hand the sword back, after which Hal quickly regains the advantage and kills him.
This Hotspur actually looks like he could prophecy.
"And food for w--" SPLAT
Hal gets all teary while eulogizing Hotspur. It's a weird effect.
And he really gets weepy at "Poor Jack, farewell..." They cut some of the lines that make the speech particularly tricky -- the "Death hath not struck so fat a deer" business. Really, by the time he exits the feeling you get from him more than anything else is "WTF is the point of all this?"
Falstaff, we find out, has been using what looks like a "wrong way" sign for a swordproof vest. At least, it looks like a "wrong way" sign does in the US -- red with a white stripe. It might mean something different in the UK. ;)
"Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke" -- one of my favorite ironic lines in the tetralogy. "And by 'ever' we mean 'most of the time.' And by 'most of the time' we mean 'when it isn't me.'"
Hey, Vernon gets to not be beheaded! Like in Chimes iirc.
Hal seems to have recovered his mood.
That is a very small army.
They remove Hal's allowing Falstaff to take the credit for the death of Hotspur -- or rather, they move it so that after Henry says what's supposed to be the last line of the play, Falstaff comes on with the body and does the whole "I look to be either earl or duke for this" routine in Henry's presence. (Again, the same thing was done in Chimes at Midnight, though Gielgud's Look of Withering Disappointment was considerably more blistering.)
Hal's reaction to the whole thing is great -- he looks like he's either going to cry or kill Falstaff -- and then after pretty much everyone has left he gives in and says "Come, bear your luggage nobly on your back..." and so forth.
They give Falstaff the last words -- "I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do." The final shot is of Hal, with his back to the audience, lifting his swords to the sky as the field is cleared, all to haunting flutey music.
Once again, a nice long collection of ramblings, no? Well, then, on to the part that at least pretends to organization! I think -- and it feels rather funny for me of all people to say this -- I think that from an ensemble perspective, anyway, this production was stronger than Richard II (never mind that it was the same cast!), although Richard II can go a lot farther on the strength of a great central performance, whereas the Henry IVs are very much an ensemble piece.
So as far as the ensemble goes, from the top down... ;) I hadn't really liked Michael Cronin in Richard II, finding his performance as Bolingbroke a bit too stodgy, but as Henry IV he doesn't really have to be charismatic, just stolidly authoritative yet repressedly angsty. Which he succeeded at just fine. You don't get the same sense of progression -- Bolingbroke as dynamic young nobleman who becomes king and is crushed by it -- and that's rather a pity, but that said, Cronin was still pretty good here; I particularly liked him in the first scene with the Percies, where he's commanding, Hotspur is blowing a gasket, and Northumberland and Worcester are trying to get a word in edgewise... ;)
Oh, and although the marked resemblance to an older Neville is still noticeable, of course, I have regained the ability to take him seriously. Which is always good.
I liked Michael Pennington's Prince Hal quite a bit, though in some scenes it was a wee bit distracting that he looks a little too old for the part (as sadcypress pointed out, it's the receding hairline -- he didn't have one in Richard II because he had a wig on, so he actually looks older as Hal than he did as Richard). Particularly in the scenes opposite King Henry. That said, it didn't bother me that much because he did a fine job as the very conflicted prince and I really look forward to seeing where he goes with it -- given the way they presented the events at Shrewsbury I can totally see how he's come to the point he's at at the start of part two (where his first line is "'Fore God, I am exceeding weary"). As for the doubling, since I've been on about that so much, the place where it struck me the most wasn't during the Henry/Hal confrontation, but during Hal's soliloquy: "Yet herein will I imitate the sun..." Which might be an imagery thing: the sun is of course a conventional image of royalty and Shakespeare makes great use of that symbolism in Richard II. Richard transfers the image to Bolingbroke in the deposition scene -- "O that I were a mockery king of snow / Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke / To melt myself away in water-drops" -- but it doesn't really stick to him; it's Hal who picks up on it (the significance of the implied connection I'm still hashing out; we'll see what the production does with it).
Anyway, a lot of the stuff I have to say about Hal really has just as much to do with Falstaff, played in this production by Barry Stanton. And Falstaff's always tricky to write about because, figuratively and literally, he is large and contains multitudes. (Harold Bloom would be so proud.) I like the way the production handles the Fat Knight -- he has great presence, is certainly larger-than-life, and of course very funny, but doesn't overrun the whole thing (because, as much as I love Falstaff, which is to say "quite a lot," if he takes over the play it just feels all wrong and imbalanced, unless you're watching Chimes at Midnight, which isn't quite the same). I've sometimes seen it said that Falstaff seems different in the two parts -- more bitter and cranky in the second -- and I suppose there's something to that but the bitterness and crankiness is pretty evident in places anyway (combined with a certain sense of self-disgust in scenes like the one I mentioned above where a hung-over Falstaff is filling his glass with the last drops in the empty bottles on the floor). There are some rather interesting ambiguities; Stanton is occasionally a rather stagey Falstaff (he keeps up the pretense in the play-within-a-play, for instance, longer than others I've seen) and, as I said up there in that huge mess of comments, when he's talking about his abuse of the draft it's hard to tell whether he's actually being callous or, as Harry Berger suggests in a really neat yet brain-bending essay, theatrically so because he is a masochist? (Well, that's reductive but you see what I mean, I hope.) I'm looking forward to seeing how the breakdown of Falstaff and Hal's friendship gets played out: the feeling I get is that they love each other dearly but of course would never let on -- though of course it's complicated by the impending rejection of Falstaff and further by the events at Shrewsbury. I sense much angst ahead. Hooray!
Most of what I was going to say about Andrew Jarvis's Hotspur gets hashed out during the running commentary. ;) After seeing the whole thing I don't think he's actually being played as deranged so much as really, really hyperactive, and I fear I may also be manifesting a bit of unfortunate accent prejudice as he talks in an accent I'm totally not used to hearing. :| (It does make a certain amount of sense for the character -- I'm reminded a bit of T.H. White's Gawain, who clings to his Scottish brogue long after his brothers have lost theirs; the ESC's Northumberland and Worcester speak RP. More on this in a moment. And I do think Jarvis's performance would have been weird and OTT regardless of dialect.) Anyway, he got a lot more watchable once it got to the battle scenes and he could cut loose a bit, as watching him try to behave himself at court and at home was actually rather uncomfortable and I spent a lot of it cringing, which may in fact have been the point.
As far as the rest of the cast goes: standouts among the supporting players include whoever it was that played Worcester (I can't remember the actor's name; it was the same guy who played Aumerle in Richard II) and Colin Farrell (no, not that one ;) ) as Bardolph, who is played as the sort to hang back, smirk at everyone, and noodle about on his trombone (I especially liked the trombone). I'm sure his death in Henry V will make me very sad. June Watson as Mistress Quickly reminded me of pretty much every Mistress Quickly I've ever seen with the possible exception of Judi Dench. ;)
That should be more than enough for now, as this post I think is even longer than the last one. A few things I'm wondering about in 2H4 that haven't come up yet:
England's decay: how is it conveyed? This is something I've got a keen sense of reading the play, but -- okay, it's not fair to say I haven't seen it done as I imagine because I've only seen one production that was not very good and did nothing with it. Anyway, in 2H4, as the King goes, so goes the realm, and I wonder if the production will convey a sense of that.
Nationalism: It was quite striking that the rebels in this play march under the Union Jack, while heretofore we'd only seen the St. George's Cross -- and then, too, in the rebel camp you have non-English participants and people with noticeable regional accents, while the royalists are pretty uniformly posh as far as I can recall. I'm curious if this is going anywhere; I imagine it must be given that Henry V gets into the creation of a British as well as an English nation. (And from what I've read about Bogdanov's production of the first tetralogy there are some interesting things done with the Union Jack as icon -- I wish I could see that. Perhaps I shall attempt to get people to persuade the Media Center...) Anyway, as even to a Shakespearean audience so much of the histories have to do with the forging of a national identity (you get a lot of this in Elizabethan writing really) it'll be intriguing to see how that gets transposed into a modern-dress production (though not being from the UK I imagine I'd miss a lot).
And now, I think, I really am finished. ;) The reviews for 2 Henry IV and Henry V might be a bit delayed depending on how much work I get done: I've got two chapters of Latin and a syllabus and reading list to work on, and these monster posts take a long time to write. Still, those of you in the habit of chatting with me will probably hear a lot beforehand at any rate... ;)
Anyway, you know the drill by now, I imagine. The notes in the running commentary are a bit more embellished this time -- they're not word for word what I wrote, and some of them I expanded on later.
Buckle your seat belts -- you're in for a looooooooong ride...
You know, the opening credit sequence (the montage of stuff from the series) is rather daft. What with all the screaming and fist-pumping and all.
The production opens with everyone singing a very folky-sounding song about "Harry le Roy." Where's that come from? It's cool! I should like to learn it...
The opening speech really is great. Intestine shock and all.
Heh, they kept in the "fourteen hundred years ago" line.
"Irregular and wild Glendower"?
Westmorland's pretty effete, too.
I've always wondered what exactly Henry is up to here, all things considered -- especially given that he seems to know what everyone else on stage does anyway...
They cut the night-tripping fairy exchange! Of course, I wouldn't want TooMuchCaffeine!Percy as a son either, so I can hardly blame them...
Oh, there's the unthrifty son speech again. You know, he just said that in Richard II 5.6 so I'm not sure why we need to hear it again.
The next scene opens with a bald guy playing the fife and a random scantily clad woman picking up her things. Heh.
Hal's receding hairline is distracting.
Ah, this play takes me back to the first days of my study of Shakespeare (it was the first history I read, and I was just about the only person in my class who liked it). It's rather nice.
Ewwwwwww...Lincolnshire bagpipe.
Love Falstaff emptying the dregs out of the bottles on the floor into a glass, taking a swig, and exclaiming "I must give over this life!"
I hate these long shots. You can't see anything.
Hey, the air conditioning went off just when Hal started his soliloquy!
"Herein will I imitate the sun" is really quite striking with the Richard/Hal double -- all kinds of associations there.
Why are they singing "Zadok the Priest" in the background?
Aumerle becomes Worcester. Hrm. That's sorta neat.
I can't decide if I like the regionally accurate accents or not.
Percy is so on crack.
I have to say this interp changes the feel of this speech (the popinjay one) -- Hotspur doesn't really come off as a particularly adept soldierly type.
I guess this is why they cut that "theme of honor's tongue" business.
I like Henry a lot better here than I did in Richard II.
Okay, don't closeup on Hotspur please. I'd like to not have nightmares.
Henry's expression while smacking Hotspur down is hilarious.
Yeah, I definitely like Henry better now.
Actually, Hotspur's acting is great, when he's not talking. (Love his expression at "My lord Northumberland, we license your departure with your son.")
Hotspur's lecturing of Worcester and Northumberland is hilarious.
Andrew Jarvis (Hotspur) really does a good job conveying that once Hotspur gets onto something he is constitutionally unable to let it go.
I really do think he's playing Hotspur as deranged. Northumberland and Worcester really do appear to have their hands full with this guy but on the other hand it makes their exploitation of him particularly icky.
They also cut the speech about plucking bright honor from the pale-faced moon which would seem to support my theory.
The music is still really dumb.
I think I'm going to start telling people who piss me off to hang themselves in their own heir-apparent garters.
Falstaff's "I am not John of Gaunt" line amuses me.
Hey, there's mohawk guy!
They do a lot of roughing up of the travellers they rob.
Falstaff has a very girly scream.
Hey, look, it's a bobby!
Hotspur looks like he's trying to do standup.
I love his insisting to the audience that "It's a good plot!"
He's such a dope. Such a dope.
Oh, here comes Lady Percy -- this doesn't bear thinking on!
She's weird-looking. And her costume looks like it was borrowed from "Little House on the Prairie."
Okay, I am seriously afraid of this scene.
Heh, I do like the tavern music.
Hal is an awful dancer.
"I shall command all the good lads of Eastcheap," indeed. We few, we happy few...
Wound-up Hal cracks me up. And I love his coat.
I rather think Francis the Tapster ought to sound like Pinky.
That's such a weird exchange.
I am amused by Hal's Hotspur impression.
Whatever Hal's got in that bottle, I want some of it.
Falstaff's contortionist fencing postures amuse me.
Mohawk Guy looks like Hotspur -- is that in fact Andrew Jarvis?
Why is the "This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker" routine making me think of "This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle"? It must be the delivery. Or the fact that I have completely cracked.
Hey, that guy standing behind Hal is Northumberland!
The "Send him back again to my mother" line is so tasteless. It's great. ;)
Hey, is Bardolph the same actor who played York? I think he is!
Hal's "We shall buy maidenheads as they buy hobnails" plays as bravado to mask his feelings of "Oh, shit, now I have to do stuff and actually attempt to carry off my brilliant scheme."
They actually lift up Falstaff on the "throne" in the play-within-a-play sequence without too much accompanying comic business.
I like the interrupting fanfares.
Falstaff's Euphuistic speech is hilarious.
"His name is..." "FALSTAFF!" I like the audience-response bit -- Falstaff, clearly, is rather fond of hearing his own name, I guess. I also like the accompanying trombone fart whenever they say it (Bardolph in this production being an accomplished trombonist).
One of the fun things about this scene in any production is hearing the actor who plays Hal impersonating his dad. Pennington's is pretty good, though the funniest I've seen is Keith Baxter's sendup of Gielgud in Chimes at Midnight.
"Eastcheap! Eastcheap! Eastcheap!" Heh.
The onstage audience responses in this are really well-done.
Falstaff is, thus far, keeping his defense of himself very stagey, rather than dropping the mask a bit as some Falstaffs do.
Poins gives the two-finger sign (the UK equivalent to the middle finger) at "banish Poins." ;)
The knock on the door comes too quickly, so we don't really get to see Falstaff's reaction to "I do, I will" (and it cuts to a long shot, too). Very annoying.
Hal looks surprisingly indulgent while saying it though.
Falstaff's indignance at "As fat as butter" amuses me.
Hal has a nice moment of ambivalence at the end of the tavern scene -- after everyone else leaves, he stands about looking pensive, goes over to the sleeping Falstaff and sort of pats him on the head, then closes the curtains and goes off snickering.
Glendower looks Stephen Fryish too. I don't think I like him much.
"Will they come when you do call for them?" gets a big laugh. (This was filmed with a live audience and occasionally you can hear them.)
Worcester is so good at looking long-suffering.
Dueling accents!
I love the way Hotspur says "Mincin' pooooooooooooetry!"
Mortimer is such a weenie.
I want to learn Welsh.
I'm thinking Lady Mortimer is so adamant about not leaving her husband because she can't understand him and thus can't figure out that he's a dork. Or maybe she's really saying "You're a ponce and I don't like you!" in Welsh.
Mortimer is such a weenie.
This is such an odd scene -- the whole play spins off into the middle of nowhere.
The Percies are both in need of a switch to decaf. I can only imagine what the kids would be like.
w00t! I love these father/son confrontation scenes.
Hal's first speech here, if it isn't actually a weird bit of doubletalk, sounds like one.
Yeah, Bolingbroke was wondered at -- in the sense of "That's what's passing for charisma these days?"
I'm not sure why they change that line to "The skipping Richard ambled up and down" -- it's not as though we've forgotten.
I love Henry's revisionist history.
"He hath more interest to the state than thou" is really insulting with this Hotspur.
Hal delivers the beginning of his long speech to Henry's back -- Henry turns at "I am your son."
For some reason Hal's speech is putting me in mind of Richard now...it may be the delivery.
Henry rather awkwardly offers to give his son a hug at the end of the scene, Hal steps back.
After the departure of Henry and Blunt Hal is left alone onstage -- he cries out, kicks the furniture, and storms out. Then the "INTERMISSION" sign comes up.
Falstaff is drinking raw eggs mixed with booze. That is the most disgusting thing I've seen in some time.
I get the impression with this Falstaff that when he talks about giving up the sauce he's half-seriously considering it.
And I love Bardolph as perpetually amused straight-man.
"Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life" -- best burn ever.
Mistress Quickly's look of astonishment at "Hostess, I forgive thee" amuses me.
Hrm, that "The land is burning" couplet sounds rather like Hal is trying to say the sort of thing he thinks ought to be said at such a time.
Falstaff appears to be horrified by the soundtrack.
That guy said "grievious"!
They appear to have crossed over into modernity at this point.
Nice delivery of "the nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales"!
Hee hee... "beaver." (I need to stop including Beavis and Butt-head moments in these running commentaries.)
Vernon has way too much fun with that speech.
You know, all things considered, the "mailed Mars" speech isn't as psychotic as I expected.
Who does the Archbishop of York remind me of? And who else does he play? And why is he so snide when he refers to "noble Westmorland"?
I am drowning in a sea of northern accents.
Heh, Blunt is now instantly badass. Even though he looks vaguely like Steve Bacic. At least he puts inflection in his lines.
Percy talking about his father here is rather interesting...
I like Hotspur's hand gesture at "Too indirect for long continuance."
Oh my...that hat. (NB: I think this refers to Falstaff's Inflated Palace Guard hat.)
"These are the cankers of long peace" -- eep.
I can't tell if Falstaff is being theatrical about his callousness toward his regiment, or just nasty.
King Henry appears to have gone old-school in his choice of armor -- a self-conscious anachronism?
Falstaff applauds Hal enthusiastically, and gives him a thumbs-up, when Hal gets all chivalrous and offers to fight Hotspur in single combat.
Hal sounds so nervous at "It will not be accepted."
Falstaff's "catechism" gets a round of applause.
The rebels are marching under a Union Jack -- the first time one has appeared. Interesting given their multinational (English, Scottish, Welsh) makeup...
Hotspur is doing the chainmail thing too. Which rather suits him.
What's supposed to be in those letters Hotspur doesn't read?
Swords? That is so 1403!
Hotspur takes Worcester's and Vernon's hands at "Let us embrace" -- nice ironic touch there.
Blunt looks vaguely like the guy who played Tiberius in I, Claudius.
You know, Douglas, turning up for a swordfight with no shirt on is a really bad idea.
"There's honor for you" *points at corpse* -- rather more striking when it's visual.
Falstaff's got a modern camouflage uniform on, Hal's in chainmail.
"Who art thou that counterfeit'st the person of a king?" A great line, in context.
Henry is a really lame fighter.
Hey! This is like the three-man lightsaber battle in Episode I!
Stage combat really doesn't come off well on TV, does it?
You know, you can't see a very valiant rebel of the name if you have your back to him. ;)
The music still sucks.
Falstaff never seems to actually do the "fake a coronary" business, during his encounter with Douglas, that I imagine him doing.
Wow, Hal is a conniving little prat! ;) During the fight with Hotspur, he loses his sword at one point, cowers in fear -- which read to me like he was feigning to psych out Hotspur -- then Hotspur decides to be sporting and hand the sword back, after which Hal quickly regains the advantage and kills him.
This Hotspur actually looks like he could prophecy.
"And food for w--" SPLAT
Hal gets all teary while eulogizing Hotspur. It's a weird effect.
And he really gets weepy at "Poor Jack, farewell..." They cut some of the lines that make the speech particularly tricky -- the "Death hath not struck so fat a deer" business. Really, by the time he exits the feeling you get from him more than anything else is "WTF is the point of all this?"
Falstaff, we find out, has been using what looks like a "wrong way" sign for a swordproof vest. At least, it looks like a "wrong way" sign does in the US -- red with a white stripe. It might mean something different in the UK. ;)
"Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke" -- one of my favorite ironic lines in the tetralogy. "And by 'ever' we mean 'most of the time.' And by 'most of the time' we mean 'when it isn't me.'"
Hey, Vernon gets to not be beheaded! Like in Chimes iirc.
Hal seems to have recovered his mood.
That is a very small army.
They remove Hal's allowing Falstaff to take the credit for the death of Hotspur -- or rather, they move it so that after Henry says what's supposed to be the last line of the play, Falstaff comes on with the body and does the whole "I look to be either earl or duke for this" routine in Henry's presence. (Again, the same thing was done in Chimes at Midnight, though Gielgud's Look of Withering Disappointment was considerably more blistering.)
Hal's reaction to the whole thing is great -- he looks like he's either going to cry or kill Falstaff -- and then after pretty much everyone has left he gives in and says "Come, bear your luggage nobly on your back..." and so forth.
They give Falstaff the last words -- "I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do." The final shot is of Hal, with his back to the audience, lifting his swords to the sky as the field is cleared, all to haunting flutey music.
Once again, a nice long collection of ramblings, no? Well, then, on to the part that at least pretends to organization! I think -- and it feels rather funny for me of all people to say this -- I think that from an ensemble perspective, anyway, this production was stronger than Richard II (never mind that it was the same cast!), although Richard II can go a lot farther on the strength of a great central performance, whereas the Henry IVs are very much an ensemble piece.
So as far as the ensemble goes, from the top down... ;) I hadn't really liked Michael Cronin in Richard II, finding his performance as Bolingbroke a bit too stodgy, but as Henry IV he doesn't really have to be charismatic, just stolidly authoritative yet repressedly angsty. Which he succeeded at just fine. You don't get the same sense of progression -- Bolingbroke as dynamic young nobleman who becomes king and is crushed by it -- and that's rather a pity, but that said, Cronin was still pretty good here; I particularly liked him in the first scene with the Percies, where he's commanding, Hotspur is blowing a gasket, and Northumberland and Worcester are trying to get a word in edgewise... ;)
Oh, and although the marked resemblance to an older Neville is still noticeable, of course, I have regained the ability to take him seriously. Which is always good.
I liked Michael Pennington's Prince Hal quite a bit, though in some scenes it was a wee bit distracting that he looks a little too old for the part (as sadcypress pointed out, it's the receding hairline -- he didn't have one in Richard II because he had a wig on, so he actually looks older as Hal than he did as Richard). Particularly in the scenes opposite King Henry. That said, it didn't bother me that much because he did a fine job as the very conflicted prince and I really look forward to seeing where he goes with it -- given the way they presented the events at Shrewsbury I can totally see how he's come to the point he's at at the start of part two (where his first line is "'Fore God, I am exceeding weary"). As for the doubling, since I've been on about that so much, the place where it struck me the most wasn't during the Henry/Hal confrontation, but during Hal's soliloquy: "Yet herein will I imitate the sun..." Which might be an imagery thing: the sun is of course a conventional image of royalty and Shakespeare makes great use of that symbolism in Richard II. Richard transfers the image to Bolingbroke in the deposition scene -- "O that I were a mockery king of snow / Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke / To melt myself away in water-drops" -- but it doesn't really stick to him; it's Hal who picks up on it (the significance of the implied connection I'm still hashing out; we'll see what the production does with it).
Anyway, a lot of the stuff I have to say about Hal really has just as much to do with Falstaff, played in this production by Barry Stanton. And Falstaff's always tricky to write about because, figuratively and literally, he is large and contains multitudes. (Harold Bloom would be so proud.) I like the way the production handles the Fat Knight -- he has great presence, is certainly larger-than-life, and of course very funny, but doesn't overrun the whole thing (because, as much as I love Falstaff, which is to say "quite a lot," if he takes over the play it just feels all wrong and imbalanced, unless you're watching Chimes at Midnight, which isn't quite the same). I've sometimes seen it said that Falstaff seems different in the two parts -- more bitter and cranky in the second -- and I suppose there's something to that but the bitterness and crankiness is pretty evident in places anyway (combined with a certain sense of self-disgust in scenes like the one I mentioned above where a hung-over Falstaff is filling his glass with the last drops in the empty bottles on the floor). There are some rather interesting ambiguities; Stanton is occasionally a rather stagey Falstaff (he keeps up the pretense in the play-within-a-play, for instance, longer than others I've seen) and, as I said up there in that huge mess of comments, when he's talking about his abuse of the draft it's hard to tell whether he's actually being callous or, as Harry Berger suggests in a really neat yet brain-bending essay, theatrically so because he is a masochist? (Well, that's reductive but you see what I mean, I hope.) I'm looking forward to seeing how the breakdown of Falstaff and Hal's friendship gets played out: the feeling I get is that they love each other dearly but of course would never let on -- though of course it's complicated by the impending rejection of Falstaff and further by the events at Shrewsbury. I sense much angst ahead. Hooray!
Most of what I was going to say about Andrew Jarvis's Hotspur gets hashed out during the running commentary. ;) After seeing the whole thing I don't think he's actually being played as deranged so much as really, really hyperactive, and I fear I may also be manifesting a bit of unfortunate accent prejudice as he talks in an accent I'm totally not used to hearing. :| (It does make a certain amount of sense for the character -- I'm reminded a bit of T.H. White's Gawain, who clings to his Scottish brogue long after his brothers have lost theirs; the ESC's Northumberland and Worcester speak RP. More on this in a moment. And I do think Jarvis's performance would have been weird and OTT regardless of dialect.) Anyway, he got a lot more watchable once it got to the battle scenes and he could cut loose a bit, as watching him try to behave himself at court and at home was actually rather uncomfortable and I spent a lot of it cringing, which may in fact have been the point.
As far as the rest of the cast goes: standouts among the supporting players include whoever it was that played Worcester (I can't remember the actor's name; it was the same guy who played Aumerle in Richard II) and Colin Farrell (no, not that one ;) ) as Bardolph, who is played as the sort to hang back, smirk at everyone, and noodle about on his trombone (I especially liked the trombone). I'm sure his death in Henry V will make me very sad. June Watson as Mistress Quickly reminded me of pretty much every Mistress Quickly I've ever seen with the possible exception of Judi Dench. ;)
That should be more than enough for now, as this post I think is even longer than the last one. A few things I'm wondering about in 2H4 that haven't come up yet:
England's decay: how is it conveyed? This is something I've got a keen sense of reading the play, but -- okay, it's not fair to say I haven't seen it done as I imagine because I've only seen one production that was not very good and did nothing with it. Anyway, in 2H4, as the King goes, so goes the realm, and I wonder if the production will convey a sense of that.
Nationalism: It was quite striking that the rebels in this play march under the Union Jack, while heretofore we'd only seen the St. George's Cross -- and then, too, in the rebel camp you have non-English participants and people with noticeable regional accents, while the royalists are pretty uniformly posh as far as I can recall. I'm curious if this is going anywhere; I imagine it must be given that Henry V gets into the creation of a British as well as an English nation. (And from what I've read about Bogdanov's production of the first tetralogy there are some interesting things done with the Union Jack as icon -- I wish I could see that. Perhaps I shall attempt to get people to persuade the Media Center...) Anyway, as even to a Shakespearean audience so much of the histories have to do with the forging of a national identity (you get a lot of this in Elizabethan writing really) it'll be intriguing to see how that gets transposed into a modern-dress production (though not being from the UK I imagine I'd miss a lot).
And now, I think, I really am finished. ;) The reviews for 2 Henry IV and Henry V might be a bit delayed depending on how much work I get done: I've got two chapters of Latin and a syllabus and reading list to work on, and these monster posts take a long time to write. Still, those of you in the habit of chatting with me will probably hear a lot beforehand at any rate... ;)