Darren Freebury-Jones
Michael Bogdanov’s Iconoclastic Approach to Political Shakespeare
Between 1986 and 1989, Michael Bogdanov directed The Wars of the Roses (an ambitious seven-play Shakespeare cycle that won him the Olivier Award for Best Director in 1990), introducing an accessible and pertinent Shakespeare to 1980s audiences and paving the way for later politicized versions of Shakespeare’s plays – such as, recently, the New York Public Theater’s 2017 production of Julius Caesar. Following Bogdanov’s death in 2017, the time seems right for a new appraisal of his work as a radical, political director. The collection of Bogdanov’s personal papers at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust offers a unique opportunity to gain an insight into the director’s mind. The papers include annotated scripts, production records, prompt books, reviews, programmes, unpublished manuscripts, and two volumes of The Director’s Cut – documents spanning Bogdanov’s entire theatrical career. In this article Darren Freebury-Jones engages with these materials, as well as the influences of theoretical movements such as cultural materialism on the director’s approach, in order to shed light on the ways in which Bogdanov stimulated and inspired new readings of Shakespeare’s history plays.
Key terms: English Shakespeare Company, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Richard II, Richard III.
BETWEEN 23 May and 18 June 2017, New from the playwright’s own time. In 1601, York’s Public Theater staged a production of there was a ‘famous attempt to use the Shakespeare’s Roman tragedy Julius Caesar theatre to subvert authority’.4 The Earl of in which the title character resembled US. Essex and his supporters planned to replace President Donald Trump.1 The production Queen Elizabeth I with King James of Scot - met with right-wing protests and generated land, whom they considered to be the legit- considerable international discussion and imate heir to the English throne. In an debate. Delta Airlines and the Bank of attempt to generate further support for their America, two corporate donors to the Public rebellion, Essex and his followers arranged Theater, withdrew financial support because for Shakespeare’s Richard II (complete with of this production’s depiction of a Trump- the deposition scene) to be performed by the like Caesar’s assassination. Lord Chamberlain’s Men at the Globe. As co-chief theatre critic for The New York Shakespeare’s text was therefore ‘given sig- Times Jesse Green points out – in a generally nificance for a particular cause’.5 favourable review – the production’s ‘depic - But Essex’s plan failed miserably and the tion of a petulant, blondish Caesar in a blue play did not garner additional support.6 It is suit, complete with gold bathtub and a pouty worth noting, nevertheless, that the scene in Slavic wife, takes onstage Trump-trolling to a which Richard II is deposed does not appear startling new level’.2 Cassius’s lines in that in Elizabethan editions of the play; indeed it play seem particularly prescient when read did not feature in print until the Fourth in this context: ‘How many ages hence / Quarto of 1608. The scene was probably cut Shall this our lofty scene be acted over / In due to censorship by Master of the Revels, states unborn and accents yet unknown.’3 Sir Edmund Tilney. Thus – just as they did in These twenty-first-century concerns about 1601 – belief that staging a Shakespeare play a Shakespeare play being appropriated for could have serious political ramifications the purposes of political speech echo those still exists today.
Downloadedntq from 35:2 https://www.cambridge.org/core (may 2019) © cambridge. University university of Athens press, on 29doi: Sep 10.1017/S0266464X190000222021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available99 at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 Alan Sinfield notes that Shakespeare ‘is Cultural materialism represented, according not a fixed entity but a concept produced in to Jarvis, ‘a more major influence’ on the specific political conditions’.7 One major director,12 who was concerned about oppres - theatre director who understood the abiding sion, state power, and resistance to it. As relevance of Shakespeare to modern politics Jarvis and John Drakakis note: was Michael Bogdanov. He is often remem- bered for his production of The Romans in It was Dollimore and Sinfield’s championing of what . . . they had called cultural materialism, a Britain at the National Theatre in 1980, which peculiarly British inflection of Marxist thinking, led to an obscenity trial, but he was also a that most attracted Bogdanov.13 daring and innovative director of Shake - speare productions. Between 1986 and 1989 Jarvis stresses, however, that although these he directed The Wars of the Roses plays, an theoretical movements influenced Bog - incredibly ambitious seven-play cycle, win - danov’s ‘thinking and practice, he developed ning him the 1990 Olivier Award for Best a political take that was specifically his Director. The only similar theatrical treat - own’.14 ment of these plays had been in Stratford- Furthermore, the collection of Bogdanov’s upon-Avon in 1963, when Peter Hall and personal papers at the Shakespeare Birth - John Barton staged the three Henry VI plays place Trust (reference GL22) consists of over and Richard III, which introduced a modern, two cubic metres of the director’s papers political Shakespeare, a thinker for our from the period 1965 to 2010, including an - times. notated scripts, production records, prompt As in the case with the Public Theater’s books, reviews, programmes, and un pub - production of Julius Caesar, Bogdanov’s lished manuscripts – documents spanning Shakespeare productions took on a timely Bogdanov’s entire theatrical career.15 I will relevance, given the political climate and suggest how these materials might shed light public uncertainty over national leaders. In on the ways in which Bogdanov stimulated this article I explore Bogdanov’s iconoclastic and inspired new readings of Shakespeare’s approach to Shakespeare’s history plays, history plays. partly in the context of the collection Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism, The Henrys edited by Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield, which, according to Andrew Jarvis, In 1986, Bogdanov and Michael Pennington served as the director’s ‘bible for The Henrys founded the English Shakespeare Company and The Wars of the Roses’.8 as ‘a radical alternative to the Royal Shake- Bogdanov regarded Political Shakespeare as speare Company’.16 The Company’s inaug- ‘a perceptive book’ in which ‘the contrib - ural productions took the form of ‘highly utors analyze the underlying radical political politicized versions’ of ‘The Henrys’ i.e. subversion contained in Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part One, Henry IV Part Two, and work’,9 and acknowledged that as a director Henry V.17 The plays opened at the Theatre he was ‘consistently sensitive to new critical Royal, Plymouth, in December of that year. thinking – new historicism, cultural mater - Although the company received funding ialism’.10 New historicism is based on the from the Arts Council of Great Britain, the theory that literature should be studied in English history plays were fundamentally, as the context of the social, political, and Carol Chillington Rutter points out, ‘a pro - historical milieu in which it was produced. test against government under-funding in Richard Wilson notes that the movement the arts that was starving regional theatres began ‘punctually at the beginning of the up and down the kingdom’.18 Indeed, in his 1980s’, but that its existence was preceded by review of ‘The Henrys’ at the Old Vic, ‘a number of prior discourses, or ways of Stanley Wells acknowledges that they were speaking, about literature and language, and performed at a time when ‘the government not by inspiration of any single individual’.11 made clear that funding for the arts would
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depend increasingly upon the private sector – action and by a profound pessimism about including people who pay for tickets’.19 It is Thatcher’s Britain’.20 Donald Trump has pro- hardly surprising then that ‘Bogdanov’s posed the elimination of funding for the direction is everywhere inflected by a National Endowment for the Arts, as well as contemporary scepticism about all political the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available101 at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 the National Endowment for the Human - returned to win a resounding victory in the ities. It seems that the political climate in following election’.31 Hal’s ‘first lesson in which the Public Theater staged their pro - politics’ is therefore, as Tony Church ack - duction of Julius Caesar is not dissimilar to nowledged in 1985, ‘advice that has sounded that in which Bogdanov staged his history down the centuries and in England is now plays. As Bogdanov puts it: ‘All art is known as the Falklands Factor’.32 political. It is protest.’21 Bogdanov appropriated Shakespeare’s Bolingbroke, Hal, and a Police State Henry IV and Henry V texts as a means of protest ‘by associating the events with con - In his book The Director’s Cut Bogdanov links temporary politics’, and thereby allowing Henry Bolingbroke (played by John Castle) ‘the plays to breathe’.22 He states that ‘There to Margaret Thatcher, thereby illuminating were areas of Shakespeare that it seemed to different aspects of Shakespeare’s character me were much more insurrectionist and by associating him with a modern political much more radical’ than had been evinced in figure. He states that Bolingbroke ‘nicked the Royal Shakespeare Company productions, crown’ and is a ‘devious, austere philistine’ and that ‘the humanist side of’ Shakespeare’s akin to ‘Thatcher after the sixties, suits ‘politics was never properly explored’.23 As instead of flares’.33 Shakespeare’s kings Michael Pennington notes in The English therefore utilized the same duplicitous tactics Shake speare Company: the Story of ‘The Wars of as modern politicians by attempting to div - the Roses’ 1986–1989, co-authored with Bog - ert their ‘enemies away from the problems at danov, Shakespeare’s history plays reflected home with a trumped-up war of expedi - the ‘schisms (uncannily like those of the ency’.34 eighties) of the nation’,24 a nation that was Notably, the prompt book for this ‘now the wrong side of the Falklands con - production marks for deletion several lines flict, so Henry’s self-justifying foreign invas - that emphasize the notion that, as monarch, ion, drowning discontent at home in its Bolingbroke is ordained by God, such as, patriotic clamour, looked uneasily different’.25 ‘Whose soldier now, under whose blessed For Bogdanov, as for Alan Sinfield, cross / We are impressed and engag’d to Shakespeare’s works were not fixed entities, fight’ (1HIV, I, i, 20–1), and the phrase, ‘like a for ‘different aspects’ of the plays ‘are sud- robe pontifical’ (III, ii, 56). These deletions denly highlighted by contemporary events, suggest that Bolingbroke’s intended pilgrim- shifts in global balance of power throw new age to Jerusalem is not an act of genuine light on old characters’.26 He therefore remorse for the execution of Richard II and encouraged his actors ‘to think politically’,27 the usurpation of the throne, but rather a and his rehearsal processes would ‘start with chosen device to ‘keep his critics and oppo - the politics, identify the social structure, the nents quiet’.35 protagonists, the status quo’.28 Jarvis notes The English Shakespeare Company port - that Bogdanov inspired the company to rayed the world of the Henry IV plays as a believe ‘that we can change the world, if we police state under Bolingbroke and his son, can only commit ourselves fully and uncon - with characters such as the Sheriff and ditionally to the act of theatre as a tool of Carrier acting as modern policemen. This social and political change’.29 was most demonstrable at the end of Part The director points out that ‘Bolingbroke’s Two, in ‘the carting of Doll Tearsheet and the dying advice to Hal’ is to ‘deflect the committal of Sir John to the Fleet’ – which country’s attention away from the problem ‘suggested that Hal’, having gained the of unemployment, taxation, homelessness, crown after his father’s death – had also with a “just war”. Thatcher triumphed dom- ‘become head of a police state’.36 That estically the same way’ through the Falk- Bogdanov considered these ‘plays for today’ lands War in 1982.30 Bogdanov elabo rates to be an act of protest against Thatcher’s that ‘Heading for disaster in the polls, she . . . Conservative government37 – a regime
Downloaded102 from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 Hal (Michael Pennington) in the midst of battle. Photo © Laurence Burns/ArenaPAL.
tainted by images of riot police, such as those which Hal . . . reduces the puny tapster called upon to deal with protests by the Francis’,43 and therefore demonstrates an miners and against the poll tax – was further ‘ability to conceal his motives and render emphasized in that ‘the rebel cause was opaque his language’,44 much like a savvy implicitly endorsed’.38 politician. After all, ‘Boardrooms may have Bogdanov’s reading of Hal was heavily replaced the Palace at Westminster, chair- influenced by Stephen Greenblatt’s chapter, persons (mainly men) replaced monarchs, ‘Invisible Bullets: Renaissance Authority and but the rules’ in the 1980s ‘were the same’ as its Subversion, Henry IV and Henry V’, in they were in Shakespeare’s time, and the Political Shakespeare. For Greenblatt, these same as they were in Henry Bolingbroke’s plays confirm the ‘hypothesis of the origin of reign of 1399–1413.45 princely power in force and fraud even as they draw their audience irresistibly toward Exercises in Class Power the celebration of that power’.39 He con siders Hal to be a ‘conniving hypocrite’ and ‘the Bogdanov’s production, like Greenblatt’s power he both serves and comes to embody essay, focused on the ruthless and imperialist is glorified usurpation and theft’.40 In The side of Hal, and just as Bolingbroke is unable Director’s Cut, Bogdanov laments the fact to call upon religion as an excuse for his that Hal leaves behind ‘a trail of wrecked actions, Lancaster’s speech, ‘I like this fair lives and the deaths of those with whom he proceeding of the king’s’ (2HIV, V, v, 96), is purported to be friends’ (the friends also rep- marked for deletion in the prompt book, thus resenting Britain’s binge-drinking culture for rendering Hal’s actions (in this case, the the director), and rejects ‘a class of which he banishment of his old friend Falstaff) both purported to be the champion, and whom he devastating and inexcusable. As Jarvis and treats with contempt’.41 Drakakis put it: Bogdanov ‘was absolutely He cites the exchange between Hal and clear that this was not a play about the Francis the drawer, in II, iv, 58–67 of Part One, Tillyardian education of a king, but rather an as a ‘cruel exercise in class power’,42 just as exploration of the imperial imperative of Greenblatt writes of ‘the odd little scene in monarchy’.46 For Jarvis, who played the
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available103 at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 Dauphin, the production of Henry V offered offer a ‘traditional’ and homogenous take on ‘a valuable opportunity to observe Bogdan - Shakespeare’s history plays appealed to new ov transforming the play’s manifest political audiences. As the theatre critic Dominic ideology into a theatrical truth that imperi- Cavendish puts it: alist readings of the play had either hitherto obscured, or transformed into . . . warmong - For a schoolboy who had mainly encountered ering jingoism’.47 Shakespeare in iffy school productions or hunched dutifully over texts in stuffy classrooms, The English Shakespeare Company there- the trilogy was a revelation. Words freighted with fore highlighted striking connections bet - scholastic anxiety became the stuff of lucid, boist - ween Bolingbroke and his son’s reigns and erous intercourse. Names that sat flatly on the Thatcher’s government, at a time when Bog - page were given full-bodied life: here was Prince danov was ‘burning with anger at the Hal (played by ESC co-founder Michael Penning - 48 ton) in jeans and neck-scarf, sipping coffee, iniquity of the British electoral system’ and swigging beer; here was a punk Pistol, sporting pondering: ‘How could the plays not be ‘Hal’s Angel’ on his jacket and a swastika tattoo, a understood in a contemporary context?’49 gun-toting liability.58 However, though the costumes, designed by Stephanie Howard, were ‘mainly of the twen tieth century’, they were also ‘eclec - A Purposeful Disjunction tic’,50 resisting labels such as ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’. For Cavendish, Bogdanov’s productions thus The English Shakespeare Company agreed ‘brought home the bellicosity both of the 59 to free ‘the audience’s imaginations by eighties and the plays’. Moreover, the allowing an eclectic mix of costumes and audiences’ imaginations were freed by the props’, with ‘modern dress at one moment, productions’ use of ‘simple settings (by medieval, Victorian, or Elizabethan the Chris Dyer)’, which ‘suggested locations by next’.51 The costumes thus ‘spanned six hun - the use of minimal properties, hangings, dred years stylistically’,52 which represented scaffolding, and a movable bridge which 60 something of a departure for Bogdanov, provided an upper acting area’. In this whose Shakespeare productions had been respect, the productions adhered closely to exclusively modern dress from 1976. In the texts by relying largely on Shakespeare’s Rutter’s view, this maverick approach to verbal scenery. costume is one of several reasons why Bog - The English Shakespeare Company’s danov was ‘perhaps the first post-modern production of Henry V was also eclectic and director of Shakespeare . . . working by relevant to modern audiences, with Henry’s pastiche, using Shakespeare’s histories as troops dressed for Ulster or the Falklands. Shakespeare himself used history, anachron - James N. Loehlin suggests that: istically, inaccurately, deconstruc tively’.53 The director was inspired to ‘break the Bogdanov’s interpretive approach for Henry V 54 actually had two layers: he physically updated stranglehold’ that exclusive modern dress the production to suggest links with contem- had on his productions by the ‘eclectic porary society and events, and he morally and theatre of expediency as practised by the politically updated it to force the audience to Elizabethans’.55 evaluate actions according to contemporary The eclecticism of these productions was standards. The first level of updating served Bogdanov in two ways. First, it provided clarity also reflected in the music: ‘Snatches of for his young, unsophisticated target audience classical music – a Bach organ toccata, a through recognizable modern reference points: Handel Coronation anthem – and sometimes Henry’s council of war is like a board meeting, the the striking of Big Ben introduced the scenes’ French are effete, wine-drinking snobs, Pistol is a concerning the English court.56 Conversely, biker. Second, Bogdanov’s updating provided a kind of dramatic excitement and entertainment of scenes featuring the rebels ‘were introduced its own, calling attention to its own cleverness 57 by urgent, strident, modern music’. The through the disjunction of the modern image and English Shakespeare Company’s refusal to the antiquated language it supported.61
Downloaded104 from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 Loehlin’s observation that Bogdanov’s em- of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. phasis on contemporary events helped to When big men fight it is the little who get illu minate Shakespeare’s text for younger caught in the crossfire.’71 audience members echoes Cavendish’s The violence of Henry’s reign was accen- recollections above. Bogdanov was able to tuated in Bogdanov’s production in such introduce Shakespeare to new audiences as a moments as when Henry orders his soldiers writer whose political and ideological argu- to kill their prisoners. The prompt book for ments were at home in the 1980s, and indeed this production provides a harrowing stage any preceding era. For instance, MacDonald direction suggestive of a war crime: ‘C. cuts P. Jackson observes that through a mixture of Solds Throat; Throws him off DSL’. Further- ‘costuming, scenery, and props, Bogdanov more, lines that could be interpreted as ransacks the whole twentieth century and endorsing Hal’s character transformation much of the nineteenth for parallels to the and his actions in war, such as Exeter’s era of war, political intrigue, and civil speech, ‘As we his subjects have in wonder unrest’.62 For Jackson, ‘the whole kaleido- found’ (HV, II, iv, 135), are marked for dele - scope of battle and power politics’ in Bog- tion, thus emphasizing Henry as a vindictive danov’s production ‘images a nation’s, not to ruler who will ‘make your Paris Louvre say a world’s, history’, and the blend of shake’ (II, iv, 132). ‘high-minded patriotic fervour and thug gish The jingoistic moment in which John jingoism nearly catches the play’s ambiva - Price’s Pistol enters, singing ‘Bluebirds over lence’.63 the White Cliffs of Dover’, seems bitterly Bogdanov drew parallels between battle ironic in this context. As the director asserts: and ‘chanting football hooligans bound for ‘Imperialism encourages jingoism. So the the European Cup Final’, thereby demon- Falklands. So Agincourt.’72 In his portrayal, strating that ‘while arenas change, patterns Pennington regarded Henry as a character of behaviour persist and historical processes with ‘chilly political clear-sightedness’, whose recur’.64 The production’s depiction of war ‘violence becomes legalized and heroic when fused numerous provocative images in the he becomes the implacable Warrior King’.73 director’s mind: ‘The last night of the Proms, Unfortunately, as Leonard Tennenhouse has the troops getting the blessing at Ports- pointed out, this warrior’s triumph, gained mouth, football fury’.65 Such ‘contrasts and at the expense of civilian lives, is temporary, oppositions created by setting, costume and because ‘he alone embodies the contradic- stage business’ – wrote Andrew Rissik in a tions that can bring disruption into the review article in 1987 – ‘force us to watch service of the State and make a discon tinu - historical violence, greed, and avarice with ous political process appear as a coherent the critical alertness we would bring natur - moment’. Thus the Epilogue reminds ‘the ally to a contemporary subject’.66 Elizabethan audience that the very marriage Greenblatt sees Henry V as being ‘almost which secured the peace with France’ also single-handedly responsible for a war’ that ‘led to the Wars of the Roses’.74 causes ‘immense civilian misery’,67 asserting that Henry ‘deftly registers every nuance of ‘The Wars of the Roses’ royal hypocrisy, ruthlessness, and bad faith, but . . . does so in the context of celeb- In 1987 the English Shakespeare Company ration’.68 For Bogdanov, Henry’s war does added Richard II, all three Henry VI plays, not provide cause for celebration; rather it and Richard III to their repertoire, touring ‘has decimated a land, a people, and its worldwide for two years. In the first play, the culture’.69 It is ‘a war of political expediency’ ‘politically incompetent’ king,75 a mere ‘petty that ‘was won more by luck than judge - tyrant’ engaged in ‘slashing the fabric of his ment’.70 It is a war comparable to those that society’,76 was outfoxed by the savvy Boling- took place during Thatcher and Tony Blair’s broke, whose violent tendencies (like his regimes, the latter leading to ‘the slaughter son’s) were given emphasis, such as in the
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available105 at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 moment that Bushy spits at him, only to with’ Thatcher’s ‘open contempt for the receive a blow to the stomach. As Bogdanov performing arts and her government’s fund- muses: ‘Once force is used, where does it ing cuts’, the English Shakespeare Company stop?’77 ‘could not resist satirizing the she-warrior of The onstage violence depicted in these the Falklands through Margaret of Anjou, productions showed little signs of subsiding and for some critics and spectators, this with the addition of the frequently bloody political analogy was justifiably timely and Henry VI texts and Richard III. Although, appropriate’.79 Thus in Bogdanov’s view, the historically, the Wars of the Roses took place ‘fractious rivalry and petty squabbling’ of between 1455 and 1487, Bogdanov’s pro - the York and Lancaster houses mirrored the ductions drew unmistakeable parallels with ‘Conservative and Labour parties’, and the modern society. For instance, Jackson notes ‘lack of belief in collective achievement’ that Queen Margaret ‘has a hairdo and evinced by these houses and parties ‘paved manner that bring to mind a more recent iron the way for both Richard III and Margaret lady also named Margaret’.78 Thatcher’.80 We might recall the controversy discussed Bogdanov was determined to show that, earlier concerning the onstage depiction of under Thatcher’s government, the ‘lessons Trump. As Randall Martin puts it: ‘Faced of history’ went ‘continually unlearnt’,81 and
Downloaded106 from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 Bogdanov’s production of Richard III. Opposite page: Charles Dale’s Richmond in combat with Andrew Jarvis’s Richard. Above: Richmond addresses the nation at the play’s conclusion. Photos © Laurence Burns/ArenaPAL.
that ‘the decline of Britain in the fifteenth conquests’.86 By integrating the character into century mirrors that of the twentieth’, as the play’s action, the company avoided this ‘internecine squabbles have riven our two partisan interpretation of England’s losses, political parties’.82 articulated by Lucy as choric authority.87 The English Shakespeare Company ‘sub - jected’ the Henry VI texts ‘to some adaptation An ‘Umbilical Cord’ to the Present but nothing drastic’.83 Lines were interpo - lated by Bogdanov in order to clarify the Bogdanov also embraced the protean qual ity complex plot, such lines being referred to as of Joan la Pucelle (played by Francesca Ryan) ‘Bogspeare’ by members of the company.84 by balancing ‘the English belief in Joan as a The character of Sir William Lucy (portrayed witch with the French (and our own) as a by John Darrell), who plays a largely choric divinely inspired saviour’.88 The produc tion role in the text, was thus expanded and therefore evaded the jingoistic faith in integrated more fully into the play’s action. England’s superiority exemplified through- The annotated script kept at the Shakespeare out this play, and it is worth noting that ‘the Birthplace Trust assigns him lines intended general, late sixteenth-century attitude to - for characters such as Talbot and Bedford, ward’ Joan ‘had no love for a character who and rather than featuring in only three is Catholic, French, and a woman’.89 scenes, as he does in the text, his was a role Unlike in the original text, no devils ‘riddled with quick changes’.85 appeared to Joan in this production. Rather Lucy’s primary purpose in the text is ‘to than portraying a categorically divine or foreshadow that the factious English nobility, supernatural figure, Ryan’s Joan countered not the might of France, will be responsible ‘the imperial depiction of war’ as a ‘one- for the loss of the dead king’s French woman independence movement whose
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available107 at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 spirit reflected Bogdanov’s own wish to and that he would have become ‘Home redefine English nationalism’.90 Joan defied Secretary in no time’.99 Paradoxically, the the toxic masculinity of the imperialist Eng - director also compared the Cade insurrection lish soldiers, although she eventually fell to ‘the Kent miners’ of the 1980s, who ‘were victim to ‘necklacing’ (as opposed to being the last to capitulate’ in the face of pit burned at the stake) by having a rubber tyre closures under Thatcher’s regime.100 He also forced around her chest and arms, in an associated the rebels with football fans image reminiscent of the summary execu - involved in the Heysel Stadium disaster on tions performed by supporters of Winnie 29 May 1985, in which Liverpool and Juven - Mandela. tus supporters were injured and killed dur- Thatcher was the first British Prime Minis - ing a confrontation.101 ter in over twenty years to host an apartheid The popular revolt of 1450 therefore head of state, having met P. W. Botha in June seems to have offered a curious mixture of 1984, and thus could be seen at the time as parallels for Bogdanov, which meant that the potentially colluding with the apartheid presentation of these insurrectionists deriv - government. Richard Dowden argues that ing from Kent and nearby counties, choreo- Thatcher ‘helped end apartheid – despite graphed by Malcolm Ranson (with Charles herself’, and ‘she opposed apartheid more Dale as Fight Captain), was open to interpre - on the grounds that it was a sin against eco - tation by Bogdanov as analogous to street nomic liberalism rather than a crime against brawls or football hooliganism in that dust - humanity. She also was bitterly against bin lids and chains were occasionally used as sanctions of any sort – they were a crime weapons, ensuring that associations in against free trade.’91 audience members’ minds were highly likely Another victim in Bogdanov’s production to be modern and provocative. took the form of a peasant French woman, who was raped offstage following Talbot’s Richare III and Thatcher as Machiavels death. The English Shakespeare Company therefore provided a harrowing account of As we have seen, Bogdanov associated the war in relation to the brutality routinely seen ruthless Machiavel, Richard III, with on television news, including events taking Thatcher. As depicted by the English Shake - place under the apartheid government of speare Company, his was an even crueller South Africa. regime than those of Henry IV and Henry V, Bogdanov believed that theatre should highlighted in the production’s prompt book ‘have both an umbilical cord to the street and by such directions as ‘kick him in the face reflect the day’s headlines’.92 The interpre- U/R’ when Clarence is murdered, and the tation of the rebellious Jack Cade in the cutting of Hastings’s throat immediately second part of the trilogy provided just such before the interval. ‘an umbilical cord’.93 Pennington’s Cade, Bogdanov acknowledged Richard as the with his ‘spiky red hair and a Union Jack ‘quintessential man of action’.102 As Tennen - vest’,94 and his followers represented ‘today’s house puts it, Richard is able to ‘ride into dumbed-down yob culture’.95 Bogdanov power’, for ‘these chronicle history plays noted that ‘Europe certainly doesn’t believe demonstrate . . . that authority goes to that such groups could never take over the contender who can seize hold of the symbols country’,96 and he could discern a real threat and signs legitimizing authority and wrest in figures who appeal to a ‘patriotic, xeno- them from his rivals’, thereby ‘making them phobic fear of foreigners’.97 The depiction of serve his own interests’. However, Richard, Cade thus ‘combined punk imagery with like his predecessors, must ‘struggle vainly National Front style politics’.98 in order to remain’ in power.103 Bogdanov believed that ‘Thatcher would In an interview with Charles Grimes for have loved’ the ‘drink-sodden, totem- the 1988 Hong Kong Festival Souvenir Book, the twirling . . . Doc Martened’ figure of Cade, director echoes Tennenhouse when he
Downloaded108 from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 describes Richard III as ‘the ultimate political through out the centuries, in order to demon - power play – the Nixon, Thatcher, Reagan strate that the lessons of history continue to play . . . the surge to power, the clinging be ignored. tenaciously to the throne’.104 Interestingly, the As a result, his iconoclastic productions production suggested at the end a successful enabled Shakespeare to breathe again, to election result for Henry Richmond rather appeal to modern audiences, and in an than a victorious battle. As Jackson notes: authorial and political sense to be, as Ben Jonson puts it in the eulogy appearing in the Three monitors screen Richmond’s image in a 1623 First Folio, ‘not of an age, but for all head-and-shoulders close-up while the new time’,109 even if that meant ‘wresting con - leader delivers the play’s last speech as a 105 temporary meaning out of Shakespeare reg- prepared newscast to the nation. ardless of whether or not’ these ‘readings were historically authentic’.110 As Jarvis and Bogdanov’s production, with its very mod- Drakakis aptly put it: ern conclusion requiring, as the prompt book reads, the ‘full company for TV studios’, thus Bogdanov was a revolutionary, who challenged seemed to offer hope for those who opposed the settled proprieties of theatre in a manner that forced a rethinking of the ‘myth’ of ‘Shakespeare’, Thatcher’s Conservative government. A new at the same time that it sought to instil a new kind Prime Minister would one day address the of respect for the social truths that the texts could nation. be made to express.111 The fact that Bogdanov’s history plays presented ‘a sort of chronology’ in terms of In many respects Bogdanov was ahead of his costume, progressing from ‘Regency period time: the linkages observed by theatre critics to modern’,106 meant that Richard III offered between characters such as Queen Margaret perhaps the most striking correlations with and political figures like Thatcher anticipate the Conservative government as a result of the kind of biting satire displayed in the its up-to-date setting (with the exception of Public Theater’s production of Julius Caesar medieval armour being worn in the final in 2017. It seems fair to claim that Bogdan- confrontation between Jarvis’s Richard and ov’s contributions to political theatre are as Dale’s Richmond). And in this pro duction enduring and relevant today as when the Richmond was not divinely appointed to English Shakespeare Company’s produc- end the bloodshed initiated by Richard II’s tions were first performed. deposition and murder, as Tillyard had argued in 1944.107 Whereas Tillyard’s theory that Shakespeare’s plays advanced the Tudor Notes and References myth deeply influenced Hall and Barton’s 1. I am grateful to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust interpretation of Shakespeare’s first tetra- for funding my research in the form of the Louis Marder Shakespeare Centre Scholarship. I am also indebted to logy for the RSC, Bogdanov rejected this Paul Edmondson, Stanley Wells, Andrew Jarvis, Laur- interpretation in favour of a more humanist ence Burns, Madeleine Cox, and Philippa Vandome for approach to Shakespeare’s characters and their assistance and correspondence during the course of this project. politics. 2. Jesse Green, ‘Review: Can Trump Survive in Bogdanov pointed out that Shakespeare Caesar’s Palace?’, New York Times, 9 June 2017. Available at ‘analyzed the political and social quicksands
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available109 at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (Manchester: 35. Ibid. Manchester University Press, 1985), p. 2–17, at p. 8. 36. Wells, ‘Shakespeare Performances’, p. 161. 5. Ibid., p. 9. 37. Bogdanov and Pennington, The English Shakes - 6. See E. K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: a Study of peare Company, p. 24. Facts and Problems, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 38. Wells, ‘Shakespeare Performances’, p. 160. 1930), II, p. 325. 39. Stephen Greenblatt, ‘Invisible Bullets: Renais - 7. Alan Sinfield, ‘Royal Shakespeare: Theatre and sance Authority and its Subversion, Henry IV and Henry the Making of Ideology’, in Political Shakespeare, op. cit,, V’, in Political Shakespeare, p. 18–47, at p. 20. p. 158–81, at p. 158. 40. Ibid., p. 30. 8. Email correspondence, 11 September 2017. 41. Bogdanov, Shakespeare – the Director’s Cut, p. 240. 9. Michael Bogdanov, Shakespeare – the Director’s Cut: 42. Ibid., p. 241. Essays on the Tragedies, Comedies, and Histories (Edin - 43. Greenblatt, ‘Invisible Bullets’, p. 31. burgh: Capercaillie, 2013), p. 200. 44. Ibid., p. 32. 10. Michael Bogdanov, Theatre – the Director’s Cue: 45. Bogdanov and Pennington, The English Shakes - Thoughts and Reminiscences (Edinburgh: Capercaillie, peare Company, p. 24. 2013), p. 227. 46. Jarvis and Drakakis, ‘The “Marxism” of Michael 11. Richard Wilson, ‘Introduction: Historicising New Bogdanov’, p. 171. Historicism’, in New Historicism and Renaissance Drama, 47. Ibid. ed. Richard Wilson and Richard Dutton (London: Long - 48. Bogdanov and Pennington, The English Shakes - man, 1992), p. 1–18, at p. 1. peare Company, p. 23. 12. Email correspondence, 26 July 2018. 49. Ibid., p. 24. 13. Andrew Jarvis and John Drakakis, ‘The 50. Wells, ‘Shakespeare Performances’, p. 159. “Marxism” of Michael Bogdanov’, Shakespeare, XIV, No. 51. Bogdanov, Shakespeare – the Director’s Cut, p. 202. 2 (2018), p. 167–73, at p. 172. 52. Ibid., p. 209. 14. Email correspondence, 26 July 2018. 53. Rutter, ‘Maverick Shakespeare’, p. 343. 15. See ‘Collection: Michael Bogdanov Archive’, 54. Bogdanov and Pennington, The English Shakes - SIBMAS, available at
Downloaded110 from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022 81. Ibid., p. 196. 93. Ibid. 82. Ibid., p. 293. 94. Ibid., p. 213. 83. Jackson, ‘The Wars of the Roses’, p. 211. 95. Ibid., p. 261. 84. Bogdanov, Shakespeare – the Director’s Cut, p. 208. 96. Ibid., p. 213. 85. Ibid., p. 125. 97. Ibid., p. 304. 86. Paul J. Vincent, ‘When Harey Met Shakespeare: 98. Hampton-Reeves and Rutter, The Henry VI Plays, the Genesis of The First Part of Henry the Sixth’, doctoral p. 136. thesis: University of Auckland, 2005, p. 197, available at 99. Bogdanov and Pennington, The English Shakes -
Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Athens, on 29 Sep 2021 at 09:30:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available111 at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X19000022