Shapes of Villainy

How very different Richard III is with Queen Margaret around. When Jane Howell's production aired in 1982 it was as a conclusion to a series, the first three parts of which were made up by Shakespeare's three Henry VI plays. This gave Howell the rare opportunity to produce Richard III without trimming or removing scenes involving Queen Margaret, a major character in the Henry VI plays but considered superfluous to productions that present Richard III as a standalone story. The difference in seeing Richard III with its intended connecting tissue is enormous, presenting a more complex world for Richard to inhabit and introducing greater nuance and complexity to Richard himself. The performances continue to be good and the linked casting wonderful.

Played by Ron Cook, Richard comes off as both more and less strange than usual. He's a relatively new player on this stage that has already seen plenty of ruthless ambition and bloody betrayal, he having not appeared until the end of Henry VI Part 2. Wikipedia quotes Jane Howell as saying of Richard in this production, "you've seen why he is created, you know how such a man can be created: he was brought up in war, he saw and knew nothing else from his father but the struggle for the crown, and if you've been brought up to fight, if you've got a great deal of energy, and physical handicaps, what do you do? You take to intrigue and plotting." At the same time, though, Richard is much cleverer and much readier to discard bonds of loyalty and family than anyone else who came before. He's a fourth generation blackguard, more streamlined than his predecessors.

Both in Henry VI Part 3 and Richard III Richard talks repeatedly about how his physical appearance has determined his fate. As he says in his famous opening soliloquy:

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain

This reflects a perspective on reality that had currency in Shakespeare's time, that beauty in some way really did represent virtue and ugliness the opposite. It's key to the scene where Richard seduces Anne Neville, here played by Zoe Wanamaker (familiar to Doctor Who fans as the ever in need of hydrating Lady Cassandra). A lot of productions and commentaries miss this, that Richard telling Anne that her beauty forced him to commit murder doesn't sway her merely as a point of flattery. The power of appearances was very real.

So the interpretation of the scene is a tricky challenge for directors and actors. We have to believe Richard really seduces her or the scene is simply grotesque and absurd. In his introduction to the play in The Norton Shakespeare, Stephen Greenblatt says the scene is more about "Richard's restless aggression transformed during the rapidfire exchange" but he also characterises Anne as, "shallow, corruptible, naively ambitious, and, above all, frightened." No matter how effective Richard is, it takes two to tango, seems to be Greenblatt's idea. But I think it's worth considering Anne's situation a little deeper. Is it mere naive ambition that forms part of her decision to marry Richard? She's a surviving member of the defeated faction of bloody wars--marriage promises not merely power but the possibility of some security for her and hers. This might be accounted for in the "frightened" part but whether she's shallow or corruptible is by no means certain.

Wanamaker plays her with quick eyes, ferocity, and intelligence and when Richard's rhetoric starts to make headway she seems shaken. She looks like a woman who's suddenly unsure of everything she thought she knew, which is just about right.

Greenblatt writes a lot about Richard's erotic power--and cites an amusing incident from the diary of a law student named John Manningham from Shakespeare's time about a woman who fell for the actor Richard Burbage for his portrayal of Richard III. Though I would suggest the attraction Richard holds for the audience is less in his aggression and more in the brashness of his self-confidence, the vulnerability of his repressed self-loathing, and the interplay between these qualities.

Richard's perception of his own ugliness is part of his worldview reiterated from Henry VI Part 3, a decision to own the world's perception of him and use it to his advantage. Of course, it proves a component of his downfall and is essential to what makes the play a tragedy instead of just a beautiful bonfire. When he tries to convince his brother's widow, Elizabeth (Rowena Cooper), to urge her daughter to marry him, he implicitly admits to the crimes Elizabeth accuses him of. When she asks what he can promise to make this an attractive match for her daughter, Richard can only say, "The time to come," meaning as he consolidates power he'll be able to reshape reality to his will, as previous rulers have done.

As I intend to prosper and repent,
So thrive I in my dangerous attempt
Of hostile arms! myself myself confound!

He's climbed this far, at this point he's king, on the belief that he was formed at birth as something by nature wicked. But this requires his brain to operate in two realities at once, he can't be wicked without having some nature that recognises wickedness and this leads to the extraordinary misery of the dream sequence.

Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:
Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
Alack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself!
I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,

Margaret (Julia Foster) never goes to war with herself like that. As a murderer she has more focus which gives her curses almost the quality of a natural disaster. The appearances of the ghosts seem natural when the play is filled with references to her curses. Margaret becomes a personification of warfare's bloody legacy.

The restoration of Margaret to the play helps emphasise all the women. She has a conference with Elizabeth and Richard's mother (Annette Crosby) where she first enumerates the crimes against her the other two women have been complicit in. Yet Elizabeth pleads, "O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile, And teach me how to curse mine enemies!" And Margaret seems amenable to this. It's as though at this point she has become a free floating force of malevolence. Curses are always so much eerier when they come from the damned.

I really like this production. My only complaint is that Howell reuses actors in different roles a lot. An actor who played a character who died will show up later playing someone else. Sometimes Howell seems to be making a point with this, as when the actors who played Richard's brother and father turn up on Richmond's side at the end of the play. And likely in Shakespeare's time the same actors were playing multiple roles (I've always loved the theory that Cordelia and the Fool in King Lear were played by the same actor). But it dilutes some of the power from the linked casting a bit and gets confusing at times. Otherwise, this is a really nice production.

Twitter Sonnet #1140

A knowing face above a shirt was worn.
Above the trees the atmosphere condensed.
From metal wombs the submarines were born.
Propellers trace where water hunts commenced.
A wall of rock requites an egg for time.
Between the fingers thread is moved a foot.
The pitted tweed began a sodden climb.
On windy top the house became but soot.
A scavenged club bespoke forsaken arms.
A time to come delivered bugs to space.
A ballast floats for hollow wooden harms.
A waterbug proceeds with stickly grace.
A drinking weed began to walk the pond.
But frogs and pads create a sitting bond.

Ruthlessness Prevailing

The third part of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays is not the final part--the story concludes in Richard III. That Richard, son of the Duke of York, becomes one of the central figures in Henry VI Part 3. The other most prominent figure is Queen Margaret and in the War of the Roses, at this point in Shakespeare's depiction of the conflict, she and Richard could be seen as the most effective and focused actors on either side from among the many other ruthless and ambitious players. Richard and Margaret are also physically different from all of the major players and these differences inspire commentary within the play--Richard because he's a hunchback and Margaret because she's a woman. I watched the excellent 1983 production directed by Jane Howell last night which carries over the cast from her productions of the previous two parts.

"Women are soft, mild, pitiful and flexible; Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless," says York (Bernard Hill) to his captor, Queen Margaret (Julia Foster). I wonder how he arrived at that opinion about women--his description doesn't fit any woman in all three parts of Henry VI--not Gloucester's scheming wife in Part 2, certainly not Joan of Arc in Part 1. Margaret, who began as a sweet young lady in Part 1, became a shameless schemer and adulteress in Part 2, and graduates to bloody warlord (warlady?) in Part 3. York might be forgiven for any obtuse or foolish words he speaks considering Margaret has just mocked him with the handkerchief made red with the blood of his murdered twelve year old son.

YORK

O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide!
How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,
To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,
And yet be seen to bear a woman's face?

It was hard for me not to think of Hill's performance as King Theoden in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films and his line about how no parent should have to bury their child. York has committed his own fair share of murders but, as Northumberland, Margaret's ally, remarks on witnessing the scene, "Had he been slaughter-man to all my kin, I should not for my life but weep with him. To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul."

And this is a tribute to Margaret as a character, that her cruelty has such a presence in the imagination that it can rival Richard's. Julia Foster infuses the lines with a luxuriating sadism, her most impressive moment until the play's climax when she is giving her own nightmare version of the Saint Crispin's Day speech to the Lancastrian forces on their last legs.

QUEEN MARGARET

Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown overboard,
The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,
And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood?
Yet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he
Should leave the helm and like a fearful lad
With tearful eyes add water to the sea
And give more strength to that which hath too much,
Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,
Which industry and courage might have saved?
Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!
Say Warwick was our anchor; what of that?
And Montague our topmost; what of him?
Our slaughter'd friends the tackles; what of these?
Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?
And Somerset another goodly mast?
The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?
And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I
For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?
We will not from the helm to sit and weep,
But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,
From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck.
As good to chide the waves as speak them fair.
And what is Edward but ruthless sea?
What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?
And Richard but a ragged fatal rock?
All these the enemies to our poor bark.
Say you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while!
Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink:
Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,
Or else you famish; that's a threefold death.
This speak I, lords, to let you understand,
If case some one of you would fly from us,
That there's no hoped-for mercy with the brothers
More than with ruthless waves, with sands and rocks.
Why, courage then! what cannot be avoided
'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.

Foster gives a dramatic pause before "ragged fatal rock", emphasising Margaret's perception of Richard as something extraordinarily dangerous. In a play where so much of the drama comes from family loyalties and betrayals, Richard famously views himself as isolated.

Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word 'love,' which graybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another
And not in me: I am myself alone.

Richard will repeat these sentiments about himself being by nature not created for human affections in Richard III. Henry VI adds a lot of dimension to the later play not only in terms of Richard himself but in terms of the other characters, particularly Richard's eldest brother, King Edward (Brian Protheroe). Henry VI Part 3 shows him to be an unsavoury character, too, but without all the qualities that make Richard fascinating.

In another scene that provides a commentary on gender dynamics, Richard and Clarence (Paul Jesson) watch as the recently crowned Edward tries to woo a widow, Elizabeth Grey (Rowena Cooper). The scene is a fascinating contrast to the one where Richard woos the widow Anne Neville in Richard III. Where Richard accomplishes his seduction with cunning emotional manipulation, Edward shows himself to be a much poorer negotiator.

KING EDWARD IV

To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.

LADY GREY

To tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.

KING EDWARD IV

Why, then thou shalt not have thy husband's lands.

LADY GREY

Why, then mine honesty shall be my dower;
For by that loss I will not purchase them.

Brian Protheroe takes pains to come off as absolutely revolting in this scene, rolling his head and eyes like some kind of giant toad with unconcealed lust while Rowena Cooper as Grey stands firm, an apparent paragon of virtue, though it's likely she was motivated by ambition, too. It's not until Edward makes her his Queen that he finally gets what he wants. He loses what Richard essentially gains at the conclusion of his wooing scene. More than that, Edward loses one of his most valuable allies, Warwick (Mark Wing-Davey), when the nobleman is embarrassed by the news of Edward's marriage in the middle of Warwick trying to negotiate with the King of France for an alliance based on a marriage between Edward and the French Princess. Of course, this is a lot like how Henry ended up marrying Margaret in Part 1.

Yes, Henry himself (Peter Benson) is still around in his own play, drifting and placid as usual, most of his decisions having to do with abdicating power. He throws away his son's inheritance at the beginning of the third play; when faced with the choice to make Warwick or Clarence Lord Protector so Henry doesn't have to make decisions, he can't even make a decision on that and makes them both Lord Protector. And yet, Howell's production finds some worth in Henry in his desire to abstain from worldly involvement. The terrific scene where fathers and sons from both sides of the conflict lament over accidentally killing their relation, sitting on either side of the contemplative Henry, is presented appropriately as dreamlike. It's the horror of any Civil War where members of the same family are forced to slaughter each other and Henry, though a very different character from Falstaff, presents us with something of that more famous character's challenging question to the audience. Is Henry at fault for not wanting to participate, or is he the only sane man in the world?

Twitter Sonnet #1131

A leading sprite deposits souls at court.
A bridle kept the flanks in moving check.
Contented eyes behold a flick'ring sort.
A hasty tack displaced them on the deck.
A bourbon gel has changed the footage hue.
There was a shadow sweat across the course.
The willows hid the mutely staring clue.
The bottle label tells its fact'ry source.
The wooden rain was frozen switched to up.
As earthly blinding bars suspend the light.
The whiskey ocean swells above the cup.
For caution's bells the storm commutes the sight.
A murder cry became a standard tease.
A world of cellophane constricts the seas.

The Hyde Solution

Is it necessary for our well being to commit rape and murder? The vast majority of us would say no but Henry Jekyll takes it as read in the extraordinary 1980 BBC adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. With a great performance by David Hemmings in the title role and several wonderful supporting performances--including Diana Dors and Clive Swift--this adaptation's perspective on sex and society clearly and cleverly reflects the punk groundswell of its day.

It begins with Jekyll seemingly addressing us directly before we realise he's recording a monograph. He puts forth the familiar theory about human beings being composed of a good and evil duality but then he directly says, "If the twin sides of my nature could be separated then the unjust could go its own way without disgracing its more upright twin." What? So the idea isn't to get rid of evil so much as to make sure he can have his evil cake and eat it too. It brings the concept a little closer to Dorian Gray at heart--goodness is imputed to be an entirely superficial thing even by the most virtuous. So ingrained is the concept of an abstract morality governing all things that characters in this story don't even consider that it could be related to real actions or conditions. Jekyll figures he's going to be under the evil column anyway for the impossible to anticipate shifting goal post of "good" so he may as well see himself as a murderer.

This is the first one I've seen to directly connect this with Protestantism. When Utterson (Ian Bannen) speculates that Henry has some past sin or disgrace haunting him, Lanyon (Clive Swift) dismissively replies, "There speaks the voice of John Calvin."

I'm always happy to see Diana Dors, one of my favourite actresses, and I knew without having to look she'd be playing the brothel madam. We meet her ensconced behind a beautiful elevated desk like a judge. An appropriate impression because this version amusingly portrays Jekyll as a regular visitor already--he pays to have prostitutes beat him. Presumably for Original Naughtiness.

Jekyll and Hyde both talk about how the moral duality also might exist in women and this is reflected in Jekyll's fiancee, Ann Coggeshall (Lisa Harrow), who unlike the ciphers of earlier versions seems like a very good match for Henry. She's shocked by the suggestion of improprieties but also leads the men on one of the sadly enduring displays of Victorian hypocrisy, the slum tour.

This version combines the Suave Hyde with the Wolfman Hyde. Hemmings gets heavily made up as Jekyll so he can look younger and more handsome as Hyde but in the transition sequences, and when things start to go wrong, he gets more hair and weird teeth.

As in the novella, there's absolutely nothing to suggest that there's anything but a cosmetic difference between Jekyll and Hyde, Hyde merely representing Jekyll under the cloak of anonymity and, in this case, with better looks and a charm that comes with self-confidence and ease of manner. So his insistent belief that he has become two separate people seems especially mad, just as unvarnished as Boris Karloff's version in the Abbott and Costello movie but much more disturbing in this context.

This is a Hyde who preys on children, too, in ways much worse than trampling them. He takes one twelve or thirteen year old girl back to her hovel where she regularly sells her body, talks to her in a broad, amiable manner like a TV presenter before cheerfully telling her to undress. I had to wonder, were the makers of this film trying to say something about Jimmy Savile? In any case, they manage to say something much bigger about society with the casual revelation that Hyde is far from the first to abuse her in this way.

Another of Hyde's victims is Jekyll's housemaid played by Toyah Willcox with a nice, understated simmer. She can't read and Hyde tricks her into taking mescal--which is also a component of his potion in this film. Someone who commented on one of my earlier reviews, Evan S Ent, told me that the formula for mescaline is written on Jekyll's chalkboard in this version, which would explain why the first transformation sequence has the inverted colours and other camera effects associated with drug trips in other films. I suppose it's possible the whole film after that first dose is one long hallucination. I'd hope so, for a lot of people's sakes.

Twitter Sonnet #1107

A silver shadow traced a fabric bird.
A stencilled night behind the curtain sleeps.
The paint not dry the morning reads the word.
A nodding bowler boards the train it keeps.
The early metal pings for walking phones.
Across a marble street the blind've blinked.
Betimes the shuffling egg could make the bones.
Preserve a brain of grapes beneath the rink.
The ancient face remakes the new to back.
A timely flame appeared a cent'ry gone.
As punching cards dissolve to painted wrack.
A pigment gave a sun to canvas dawn.
A shiny mustard bullion fills the hold.
The endless columns do resemble gold.