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 The papers include annotated scripts, production records, prompt books, reviews, programmes, unpublished manuscripts, and two volumes of The Director’s Cut – documents spanning Bogdanov’s entire theatrical career.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 deb ate. 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 span ning Shake speare 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 Downloaded100 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 Above: Michael Bogdanov. Below: a rehearsal of The Henrys (photo: Laurence Burns). 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 tem porary politics’, and thereby allowing Henry Bolingbroke (played by John Castle) ‘the plays to breathe’.22 He states that ‘There to Margaret Thatcher, thereby illum inating 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.