Henry IV Part II - Talking Back

We intentionally went to the performance of Part II that was a talk back night. This is the first time we had ever been to something like this, but it was not the first time we had a chance to interact with Shakespearean actors. When we were in England in February and March to see the history plays at the RSC, we went to church on the second Sunday we were there and by a combination of luck and nerve introduced ourselves to Geoffrey Streatfeild who played Hal/Henry V. Besides getting my picture taken with him, I had a brief moment to ask him if he found Hal/Henry V a sympathetic character and he said he did.

On Wednesday night there was a woman who checked our tickets at the door, who I though not unnaturally was the usher. I was more than a little surprised when at the end of the play, she came on to the stage to lead the talk back - it turns out that she was Beverly Bullock, the director. A few minutes later she was joined by some of the actors, happily Brian Morvant who played Hal, but unfortunately not Falstaff, Henry IV and/or Hotspur.

As with Part I unfortunately the audience was small and only a few people stayed for the talk back. The good news was that it gave me and one other person the chance to ask several questions and, to some extent, to have a dialogue. One of the major issues of the Henry IV plays is one's reaction to Hal's rejection of Falstaff at the end of Part II. It always seems to me that those who reject Hal because he rejects Falstaff are in the majority. However I seem to be running into more and more people who feel sympathize with Hal.

To some extent this is accepting a traditional view that Hal is basically slumming in order to learn about the people he will lead as king. Taken to its logical conclusion this view means that the Battle of Agincourt as portrayed in Henry V was won not on the playing fields of Eaton, but in the taverns of Eastcheap. At some level that sounds too simple, but I do think that in the history plays Shakespeare is exploring national leadership especially as it relates to the common people.

Anyway both Beverly Bullock and Brian Morvant seemed to find Hal to be a sympathetic character. In talking about Hal rejecting his friend/friends, Brian made an interesting point that he can think of times in his own life that he walked away from friends which he regretted, but felt he had to do. At some level that is part of being human and perhaps something that should be avoided in any evaluation of Shakespeare's portrayal of a character is thinking he should be more or less than human.

I suggested that perhaps in the scene where Falstaff learns Hal is king, the reason Shakespeare has Falstaff say outrageous things like, "the laws of England are at my feet" or something like that, is to emphasize that kind of behaviour can never be countenanced. Beverly Bullock also pointed out that that may be the reason for the short scene in between the one just mentioned and the rejection where Doll Tearsheet and Mistress Quickly are arrested for their role in a murder. I have never understood that scene, it is dropped from a lot of productions, and the explanation certainly makes sense.

Something else that Beverly said that I have heard before is that it is possible that Shakespeare lost control of Falstaff. That as Shakespeare wrote the part, the character became so funny and so attractive that we risk losing sight of all the terrible things he does. For example, in each play, he takes bribes to excuse some men from battle, taking instead misfits who he cares little about.

One final thing that we learned was that the actors had only four weeks to rehearse both plays. I can't imagine doing one play based on four weeks rehearsal much less two and if there were cuts in these productions it wasn't that noticeable. We really enjoyed ourselves at both productions and plan to see their Hamlet in February as well as Henry V and Henry VI later in 2009. In each case making the talk back night the preferred date!