Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 Preparatory Workpack Thetravelex £10 Season Contents
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Education Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 Preparatory workpack TheTravelex £10 Season Contents A Dramatic Commentary 2 part1 part2 Shakespeare’s History Plays 14 lV lV Teaching Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 15 Preparing the National’s productions 20 Henry Henry ng, designed by Michael Mayhew © National BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Olivier Theatre 4 May. Photo (David Harewood, David Bradley, Michael Gambon, Matthew Macfadyen and John Wood) by Hugo Glendinni Theatre (reg’d charity) Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 Workpack co-written by Editor NT Education Workpack By William Shakespeare Peter Reynolds, Emma Thirlwell National Theatre © Peter Reynolds and Creative Director of South Bank Samantha Potter Director www.stagework.org.uk Design London SE1 9PX The views expressed in this Nicholas Hytner with contributions from Patrick Eley, Lisa Johnson workpack are not necessarily Samantha Potter, T 020 7452 3388 those of the National Theatre Further production details Staff Director on this F 020 7452 3380 www.nationaltheatre.org.uk production E educationenquiries@ nationaltheatre.org.uk A Dramatic Commentary HENRY IV PART 1 Their manner and their talk reveal an intimacy and informality entirely lacking from the Act 1 scene 1 behaviour of the men in the opening scene and, KING HENRY IV and his closest associates in contrast to news of a kingdom at war with acknowledge the deeply troubled nature of the itself, we now meet a man at odds with himself: times. Henry speaks of the recent armed Falstaff, according to his young companion, conflict that has left them all feeling physically doesn’t even know what time of day it is. Their and emotionally exhausted. He wants to unite talk justifies Henry’s fears for his son’s moral the country under the banner of a crusade; a wellbeing not least because Falstaff states that tactic that he hopes will focus attention away they are both criminals: “we that take purses”, from troubles at home and onto foreigners, and the Prince’s subsequent question to “these pagans in those holy fields”, and so serve Falstaff, “where shall we take a purse tomorrow to unite a disunited people. He also wants the Jack?” One of their drinking companions, NED crusade to atone for his own deep sense of guilt POINS, plots to rob wealthy travellers, “pilgrims at being responsible for the deposition of the going to Canterbury”, and “traders riding to previous, supposedly divinely appointed, London”, but the Prince says, “I’ll tarry at English King, Richard II. But Henry’s plan is home”, leaving a question mark over his stillborn because of continuing instability and previous apparent willingness to act as a thief. the imminent threat to his kingdom posed by After Falstaff has left, Poins explains that he “the irregular and wild Glendower.” The margins really intends an elaborate practical joke at of Henry’s nation are far from being united with Falstaff’s expense, a plot involving a robbery it. GLENDOWER is Welsh, but there is also that will lead to the exposure of Falstaff as both trouble brewing in the North where fighting is a coward and a supreme liar. reported between forces led by the young and “gallant” HOTSPUR, son of the powerful Earl of At the end of the scene the Prince is left alone. Northumberland, and the young and “valiant” The audience have seen and heard his Scot, DOUGLAS, who commands some ten behaviour and witnessed the company he thousand men. The King hears that Hotspur has keeps and must, like his father, be inclined to emerged the victor, causing the anxious see it as evidence of juvenile delinquency, an monarch to reflect on how different this young adolescent male at risk because of a very man is in every way compared to his own son under-developed sense of personal and heir, HARRY, Prince of Wales: “riot and responsibility. But as if to counter these dishonour stain the brow/Of my young Harry.” unvoiced assumptions about him, the Prince Hotspur too is rebellious as with most addresses the audience and claims that what adolescent young men, but in a very different they have seen is only a form of play-acting. He way: he has refused to hand over his prisoners plays a role in a company of unsavoury to the King (bar one), as convention dictates he characters, so that when the time comes for him must. WESTMORLAND, one of the King’s to assume a very public role as Prince and closest counsellors, claims this is due to the eventually as King, he will change and shine all malign influence of an older man, Hotspur’s the brighter in public opinion: “…like bright uncle, WORCESTER. metal on a sullen ground,/My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,/Shall show more goodly, Act 1 scene 2 and attract more eyes/Than that which hath no The action moves from the high politics of the foil to set it off.” court to a very different world in which we are presented with an older man in the company of Act 1 scene 3 a younger: FALSTAFF and Henry IV’s son, Harry. The action switches back to the court and we national theatre education workpack 2 Directing and rehearsing are introduced to another high-born adolescent Gadshill), but what the incident displays is a young man, HENRY PERCY, known as Hotspur, world away from the kind of action Hotspur the son of the Earl of Northumberland. Unlike would seek out. The trickery of the Prince and the King’s eldest son, this young man is held Poins, and the cowardice of Falstaff and his in high esteem by his father, and indeed by companions, transform it into a farce. After the King himself. But Hotspur and Prince Harry robbing and binding the travellers, a process have similarities, for both are rebelling, albeit accompanied by Falstaff’s approximation of in different ways, against authority. The Prince fighting talk, “Ah, whoreson caterpillars, bacon- associates with the ‘wrong’ sort, in very fed knaves!”, the successful action is inappropriate places. Hotspur is impetuous overturned with consummate ease by a enough to rebel against the lawful authority challenge to the robbers from the Prince and of the King himself and has played a leading Poins that scatters them: “The thieves are all role in an armed insurrection that threatens scattered, and possessed with fear/So strongly to embroil the whole country in civil war. His that they dare not meet each other.” frustration with the King is evident in this scene Act 2 scene 3 and is shared by his father who, we learn, Hotspur enters reading a letter from someone was instrumental in helping the then Henry who thinks that the strategy behind the Bolingbroke take power and ultimately the rebellion is ill-considered. Instead of heeding crown from the entirely legitimate grasp of the what the writer actually says, Hotspur, in former king, Richard II. According to the Percy typically impatient fashion, becomes first family, Henry failed to return the favour, which exasperated and then outraged at the author’s continues to rankle with them. Hotspur refuses temerity in expressing any doubts whatsoever. to hand over the prisoners that he has taken, He labels caution as weakness, and with a which is both a symbolic snub to the King’s characteristically sexist insult, “I could brain him authority as well as a blow to the monarch’s with his lady’s fan”, ignores what the letter is exchequer: the only prisoners worth taking clearly signalling. Ironically, his lady (his wife), were those who could command a ransom. LADY PERCY, then appears, and through her Before he leaves, Henry IV makes the return of eyes we are able to see a very different side of the prisoners an issue of principle and demands this roaring boy, a boy who cannot sleep at their return. night because he dreams of battle: “Thy spirit The rebellious lords explain to Hotspur (who within thee hath been so at war,/And thus hath becomes too incensed with his own outrage to so bestirred thee in thy sleep,/That beads of actually listen) that they will now press ahead sweat hath stood upon thy brow/Like bubbles in with their plans for an armed rebellion, in effect a late-disturbèd stream…” These night sweats civil war, aimed at toppling the King. signal anxiety beneath the tough exterior and display another side of Hotspur. Shakespeare Act 2 scenes 1-2 gives us the private as well as the public man, Having watched and listened at some length and shows that, for all his aggressive in the previous scene to Hotspur’s conspicuous masculinity, the young Hotspur is also capable display of the traditional attributes associated of playfulness and gentleness, qualities that with masculine prowess: bravery, decisiveness, prevent him from being one-dimensional. assertiveness, and heard his open disdain for anything he regards as remotely “effeminate”, Act 2 scene 4 (cautious), Shakespeare now offers a From the bedroom to the tap room, we follow wonderfully telling contrast. We witness a very the other adolescent boy’s progress in a tavern different performance by very different types of scene full of indulgence and humour. The Prince men. Their action parodies the heroic masculine boasts of drinking in the company not of the rhetoric, the fighting talk so beloved of Hotspur. nobility, but of very ordinary men, “Tom, Dick, There is an actual armed engagement (Falstaff and Francis”. He acknowledges that others leads a robbery of unarmed travellers at (including his father) have compared him national theatre education workpack 3 Directing and rehearsing unfavourably with Northumberland’s son, plays a neat reversal of the King’s actual opinion but mocks Hotspur in a way that shows he of him: “…there is virtue in that Falstaff.