(no subject)
As I type this there is a real rainstorm going on outside- proper torrential rain that looks like stair rods- and that's appropriate because it started raining about 5 minutes into Part 3, went through a proper thunderstorm, stopped briefly at the start of Act Two and then rained increasingly heavily until the end of the play.
My sandals are still recovering, my keyring got waterlogged and ruined (which is sad because it was one I got when KB's Peace Comes to the Chalet School was first published) and I was VERY glad most of my belongings were inside a plastic bag inside my rucksack :-/
Proper Globe weather. Though no hail this time thankfully.
Henry VI, Part 3 (The True Tragedy of the Duke of York) @ Shakespeare's Globe
It really was very hard to concentrate in the rain but at least the play starts so dramatically with the Yorks rushing on stage it had enough energy to carry us along.
Joe Jameson was tasked with basically being all the younger characters (in a similar way to Colin Ryan in Macbeth!) so having already died as young!Talbot he now became Edmund, Earl of Rutland, begging Clifford not to kill him which was horrible (I mean well) done so later when York was brought before Margaret & Prince Edward to be killed and she wiped his face with the blood of his son it made me feel sick in exactly the way it was supposed to. Meanwhile Edward giggled in the background as he did at most violence that took place in his presence- you feared for England if he'd actually survived to rule! He appeared to have the mental instability of his father coupled with the will for violence and power of his mother which is not a great mix. Watching York try to tell Margaret how unlike a woman she was was interesting when she was dressed very definitely in male clothing and was clearly unbothered by what he said but OH when later her son was killed in front of her and she kept shouting that they couldn't have had children if they murdered hers and... well cycles of violence and all that.
One interesting scene which provoked much discussion afterwards was Henry VI seeing the "son who killed his father" and "father who killed his son" because they were played by the same two actors. Mum, and the people sitting near here (interestingly Mum ended up sitting with the parents of several cast members for the last play!) thought it was brilliant and very powerful but N & I (and some of the groundlings near us who also didn't know the play) had a very weird reaction when the dead father rolled over and preceded to mourn his son- it took me a moment to realise they were different characters! Though maybe that was the rain washing out my brain!
The three suns vision for Edward, Richard & George incidentally lost any dramatic power because of the rain- we all just laughed I'm afraid!
Simon Harrison's Richard really developed in this play and his speech at the end of act one was all self-hatred turning to hatred of the world and he was a very different Richard to either of the Richard III productions I've seen. I suddenly found myself, yet again, berating my former self for not actually watching the full Histories Cycle when I had the chance with the RSC because I want to see what comes next with THIS cast iyswim.
Though also by that point I just wanted out of the rain.
After the interval the rain had briefly stopped and we started in the french court and Brendan O’Hea had SO much fun being King Lewis it was beautiful. After his stern York King Lewis was all drippy sleeves and flouncing. He seemed fairly taken with the manly Warwick when he came in and then greeted the messanger with a kiss (both cheeks and then the lips) and when he found out Edward had married Elizabeth Grey he threw a WONDERFUL hissy fit involving every drum on the stage, most of the scenery and ending up throwing himself into a sort of tumble/forwards roll!
What else? OH Richard & Henry coming face to face in the murder scene was fascinating because Henry was so still and knew what was coming and you couldn't help feeling that Henry VI with Richard II's ability to actually DO things would be a great king and instead they made two awful kings. And to go back to a previous point it was Henry offering Richard God's forgiveness that tipped Richard over into a really vicious murder which really played to the idea of self-hatred.
Watching the end of Henry VI with Edward completely besotted with his wife and clueless as to how much trouble he's about to face from within his own family is fascinating and painful and, again, made me desperately want to see Richard III!
Mind you it also made me want more scenes when York's sons were together being... well happily being brothers is maybe too much to ask given George's betrayal of Edward in this play but I want stories of Shakespeare's versions of these characters fighting together and turning into these people- Edward so sure of himself but so easily blinded (as his father perhaps was) and Richard with more of his father's political know-how but incredibly twisted with it and then George switching sides as was advantageous but dooming his future self in the process.
And THEN we got our jig and it was a great one- Richard of Gloucester & Henry VI got rather fab solos and it was all very energetic and great and just what you need when you're cold and both glad it's over and also still sort of under the play's spell.
And then there was champagne and an attempt at drying off before we headed home.
And that's it. ALL THE SHAKESPEARE!
My sandals are still recovering, my keyring got waterlogged and ruined (which is sad because it was one I got when KB's Peace Comes to the Chalet School was first published) and I was VERY glad most of my belongings were inside a plastic bag inside my rucksack :-/
Proper Globe weather. Though no hail this time thankfully.
Henry VI, Part 3 (The True Tragedy of the Duke of York) @ Shakespeare's Globe
It really was very hard to concentrate in the rain but at least the play starts so dramatically with the Yorks rushing on stage it had enough energy to carry us along.
Joe Jameson was tasked with basically being all the younger characters (in a similar way to Colin Ryan in Macbeth!) so having already died as young!Talbot he now became Edmund, Earl of Rutland, begging Clifford not to kill him which was horrible (I mean well) done so later when York was brought before Margaret & Prince Edward to be killed and she wiped his face with the blood of his son it made me feel sick in exactly the way it was supposed to. Meanwhile Edward giggled in the background as he did at most violence that took place in his presence- you feared for England if he'd actually survived to rule! He appeared to have the mental instability of his father coupled with the will for violence and power of his mother which is not a great mix. Watching York try to tell Margaret how unlike a woman she was was interesting when she was dressed very definitely in male clothing and was clearly unbothered by what he said but OH when later her son was killed in front of her and she kept shouting that they couldn't have had children if they murdered hers and... well cycles of violence and all that.
One interesting scene which provoked much discussion afterwards was Henry VI seeing the "son who killed his father" and "father who killed his son" because they were played by the same two actors. Mum, and the people sitting near here (interestingly Mum ended up sitting with the parents of several cast members for the last play!) thought it was brilliant and very powerful but N & I (and some of the groundlings near us who also didn't know the play) had a very weird reaction when the dead father rolled over and preceded to mourn his son- it took me a moment to realise they were different characters! Though maybe that was the rain washing out my brain!
The three suns vision for Edward, Richard & George incidentally lost any dramatic power because of the rain- we all just laughed I'm afraid!
Simon Harrison's Richard really developed in this play and his speech at the end of act one was all self-hatred turning to hatred of the world and he was a very different Richard to either of the Richard III productions I've seen. I suddenly found myself, yet again, berating my former self for not actually watching the full Histories Cycle when I had the chance with the RSC because I want to see what comes next with THIS cast iyswim.
Though also by that point I just wanted out of the rain.
After the interval the rain had briefly stopped and we started in the french court and Brendan O’Hea had SO much fun being King Lewis it was beautiful. After his stern York King Lewis was all drippy sleeves and flouncing. He seemed fairly taken with the manly Warwick when he came in and then greeted the messanger with a kiss (both cheeks and then the lips) and when he found out Edward had married Elizabeth Grey he threw a WONDERFUL hissy fit involving every drum on the stage, most of the scenery and ending up throwing himself into a sort of tumble/forwards roll!
What else? OH Richard & Henry coming face to face in the murder scene was fascinating because Henry was so still and knew what was coming and you couldn't help feeling that Henry VI with Richard II's ability to actually DO things would be a great king and instead they made two awful kings. And to go back to a previous point it was Henry offering Richard God's forgiveness that tipped Richard over into a really vicious murder which really played to the idea of self-hatred.
Watching the end of Henry VI with Edward completely besotted with his wife and clueless as to how much trouble he's about to face from within his own family is fascinating and painful and, again, made me desperately want to see Richard III!
Mind you it also made me want more scenes when York's sons were together being... well happily being brothers is maybe too much to ask given George's betrayal of Edward in this play but I want stories of Shakespeare's versions of these characters fighting together and turning into these people- Edward so sure of himself but so easily blinded (as his father perhaps was) and Richard with more of his father's political know-how but incredibly twisted with it and then George switching sides as was advantageous but dooming his future self in the process.
And THEN we got our jig and it was a great one- Richard of Gloucester & Henry VI got rather fab solos and it was all very energetic and great and just what you need when you're cold and both glad it's over and also still sort of under the play's spell.
And then there was champagne and an attempt at drying off before we headed home.
And that's it. ALL THE SHAKESPEARE!