This season Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory turn to our Will’s history plays for the first time. Steve Wright finds out why from artistic director Andrew Hilton.

Bristol’s brilliant Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory have staged, since their inception in 2000, 20 works by the Bard (plus two Chekhovs, one Molière and a Jacobean tragedy, if we’re counting). And they’ve divvied that tally between Will’s tragedies and comedies, favouring the latter 11-9. But what of Shakespeare’s third genre, the histories – the cycle of (often tragic) plays loosely chronicling England’s succession of Mediaeval and Tudor monarchs? Untouched by the company so far: but that all changes this season, as SATTF make their first foray into Mediaeval Albion.

Of the 11 plays that span the lives of English monarchs from 1200-1500, SATTF have plumped for ‘King Richard the Second’. The tale of the troubled reign and ultimate downfall of the Plantagenet king, ‘Richard II’’s events set in motion the Wars of the Roses, which are explored more fully in six further Shakespeare plays.

Shakespeare’s loosely historical account of Richard’s last days concentrates on his most fateful error – the exile of his cousin Henry Bullingbrook and the seizure of the latter’s Lancastrian estates. Bullingbrook would return to England, topple Richard and take the throne himself as Henry IV, setting the stage for the bloody Wars between York and Lancaster.

So why have SATTF opted for this relatively little-known history play as opposed to, say, the more obviously dramatic ‘Richard III’ or ‘Henry V’? “Partly because it is such a suitable play for a small, intimate theatre,” says SATTF’s founder and artistic director Andrew Hilton. “It is, at heart, a psychological tragedy. Battles are threatened but don’t happen; the conflict is very personal, and happens very much in the minds of Richard and Bullingbrook. It also, despite being the first play in a tetralogy [followed by ‘Henry IV’ Parts 1 and 2 and ‘Henry V’], stands quite happily alone. No-one will leave the theatre feeling they’ve only had half (or a quarter of) a meal.”

The plot is, in relative terms, quite a simple one – king gets overweening, king gets overthrown. “Don’t knock narrative simplicity,” says Andrew. “The simpler the plot, the more space to explore the characters’ humanity and the inter-character conflicts. The play is widely recognised for the beauty of its language – the famous speech about England by John of Gaunt and Richard’s own meditations on loss – but it is much more than that. The deconstruction of Richard is extraordinarily modern in its concern with the meaning and substance of identity.”

And, in fact, the play does offer up a few complexities – notably the story of the Duke of Gloucester’s murder in Calais, which takes place some years before the action unfolds. “Richard was almost certainly the instigator,” Hilton explains. “He resented Gloucester, his uncle and Lord Protector during Richard’s minority [Richard came to the throne at the age of ten], though whether for just criticising his behaviour or for actually plotting to overthrow him depends on which version of events you believe. In the play Richard’s guilt is an open secret, but there is much debate – unresolved – as to who Gloucester’s actual executioners were.” Neither is it all sombre fare. “There are elements of farce as well – sometimes cut from productions by directors who consider them inappropriate to the dignity of tragedy. That’s crazy and, of course, we keep them.”

Is Richard’s mistaken sense of his role as king his tragic flaw? “He certainly has a dangerously inflated idea of his divinely ordained ‘right to rule’. He has been brought up to believe that kingship is his by right, and that there can be no challenge to his behaviour, no matter how extravagant, selfish or politically illiterate it becomes.”

The play should be viewed, says Andrew, more as psychological drama than Mediaeval history crash-course. “In fact, the history in it is very dubious. Shakespeare was more interested in the study of a man who was born to be king but then stripped of his powers. What is then left of that man? It’s a classic Shakespearean theme.

 “To himself, and to others, Richard is the king, plain and simple. Only when he first foresees that he might be deposed is he forced to recognise himself as a mere man – ‘I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, need friends’. Rather like Lear on the heath, stripped of titles, ‘unaccommodated man… a poor bare, forked animal’, Richard’s very identity is called into question.”

The medieval notion – still very powerful in Shakespeare’s time – that kings were divinely appointed, to be obeyed through thick and thin, is fundamental to the play’s dramatic drive. “That notion may seem very foreign to us, but it has its modern parallel in the Mugabes of this world, who are equally persuaded of their inalienable right to rule until death. The role from which one does not retire – be it tin-pot dictator or Pope – did not disappear with the Enlightenment.”

In terms of setting, SATTF (and designer Harriet de Winton) are keeping the play in its historical period, the late 14th century – though they won’t be enslaved by the period. “The text is riddled with anachronisms, and we shall no doubt introduce ones of our own, even if it is only in shirt buttons (which hadn’t been invented). But chiefly, we are determined to avoid that red, white and green ‘pageant of English history’ look which is so unconvincing and alienating. This will be a real world and its external differences from our own will fade into insignificance as the evening progresses.”

A strong-looking cast, meanwhile, includes NT/RSC star John Heffernan as Richard and BAFTA-nominated Benjamin Whitrow (Mr Bennett in BBC’s 1996 ‘Pride and Prejudice’) as John of Gaunt. You’ll also find RSC/TV actress Julia Hills, Venue Top Thesp ’09 Oliver Millingham, established SATTF names like Roland Oliver, Dan Winter and Ffion Jolly, and a couple of talents who hugely impressed us during 2010: BOV Theatre School grad Jack Bannell (an imperious Proctor in BOVTS’s ‘The Crucible’) and Gareth Kennerley, superb in Sharon Clark’s ‘Pavement’.

‘Richard II’ will be succeeded in late March by ‘The Comedy of Errors’ (more on that nearer the time) for what will be Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory’s twelfth season. These are good times at the company, with 2010’s pairing of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and ‘The Tempest’ (popular choices both, admittedly) making for a fourth consecutive sell-out season. Not bad for a company whose first performance of ‘King Lear’ in 2000 played to an audience of twelve.

The narrative since that quietish opening, indeed, has been an almost entirely positive one, with a 2001 Peter Brook Award, a 2004 Barbican run, a superb, Jonathan Miller-directed ‘Hamlet’ in 2008, two Bristol Old Vic autumn collaborations to date and, last year, a sell-out run at the Galway Arts Festival.  The blips on that happy curve were 2005’s ‘Pericles’ and ‘Three Sisters’ pairing, when the company lost £25,000, and the following year’s ‘Titus Andronicus’, a difficult, sombre and violent play that played to only 40% capacity. SATTF came close to closing before the end of that season – but even this trauma brought its rewards, with an overwhelming response to SATTF’s public appeal showing Andrew and company how much they mattered to Bristol and beyond.

So how is the company’s current state of health? “We are wary of over-confidence,” is Andrew’s measured response. “We are yet to see how deep the current cuts to the arts will bite, and what effect they will have on theatre-going. And I have had to learn that I have only the most unreliable understanding of what will appeal to our audiences the most. But we are in good enough shape, financially – providing we can continue to attract capacity houses.” As far as talent goes, Andrew says, SATTF’s resources just grow and grow. “That comes partly from a widening and consolidating reputation – but, of course, it’s also aided by the shrinkage in available work elsewhere. I am absolutely inundated with emails from actors wanting to be seen, and from designers and composers as well.”

And how many more of Will’s histories are on the SATTF wish list? “I would certainly like to do the two ‘Henry IV’ plays, though we are nervous of giving over a whole season to them. Although our season of two ‘Roman’ plays [2009’s ‘Julius Casear’/‘Antony & Cleopatra’ coupling] was a great success, we prefer on the whole, as we’ve done this year, to offer a rich contrast.  I also like ‘Richard III’. I’m less enamoured of ‘Henry V’ and the ‘Henry VI’ trilogy.”

Times are busy at SATTF, with hopes for more collaborations like those with BOV and the possibility of taking this year’s ‘Comedy of Errors’ elsewhere after its Tobacco Factory run. So how many more seasons are left in the SATTF tank? “I set out to do five years, then ten: now we’re into our twelfth. I’m playing it by ear, hoping I’m the first – not the last – to recognise when it’s time to stop. I don’t feel that’s on the horizon just yet.”

SATTF’S RICHARD II PLAYS AT THE TOBACCO FACTORY FROM TO SAT 19 MAR; THE COMEDY OF ERRORS FROM THUR 24 MAR-SAT 30 APR. FFI: WWW.SATTF.ORG.UK FOR REVIEW CLICK HERE.
 

Copyright Steve Wright 2011

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