Henry VI: Rebellion; Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses; Richard III Presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon (review)

Reviewed by: Henry VI: Rebellion; Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses; Richard III Presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Katherine Hipkiss Henry VI: Rebellion; Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses; Richard III Presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. 1 April–8 October 2022. Directed by Owen Horsley (Henry VIs) and Gregory Doran (Richard III). Set design by Stephen Brimson Lewis. Lighting design by Simon Spencer (Henry VIs) and Matt Daw (Richard III). Costume design by Hannah Clark (Henry VIs). Music composed and directed by Paul Englishby. With Mark Quartley (Henry VI), Minnie Gale (Margaret), Oliver Alvin-Wilson (York), Arthur Hughes (Richard III), Aaron Sidwell (Jack Cade/Son Who Killed His Father), Ashley D. Gayle (Edward IV), Daniel J. Carver (Clifford), Nicholas Karimi (Warwick), Yasmin Taheri (Elizabeth), Lucy Benjamin (Eleanor/other parts), Richard Cant (Humphrey Duke of Gloucester/other parts), Paola Dionisotti (Cardinal Beaufort/other parts), Conor Glean (Dick the Butcher/other parts), Peter Moreton (Father Who Killed his Son/other parts), Sophia Papadopoulos (Prince Edward), and others. What is a cycle of history plays? Is it simply performing plays that have a set chronology in order? Is it defined by all of the plays having the same director? By having the same company of actors and the same creative [End Page 147] team? Is a cycle of history plays defined by there being a cohesion and consistency of aesthetic choices? The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) produced Henry VI: Rebellion, Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses, and Richard III across a seven-month period from April to October 2022 with two different directors (Owen Horsely and Gregory Doran), a sometimes-consistent cast, and an occasionally cohesive aesthetic approach. These three plays formed part of the RSC’s take on the first tetralogy, with Henry VI: Part One being performed as part of an “Open Rehearsal Project,” during which a three-week rehearsal process was filmed before a final performance in the Ashcroft Rehearsal Room above the Swan Theatre in 2021. In this review, I will consider the three 2022 productions, all staged in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, as a cycle, and will focus primarily on the aspects that were consistent across the three plays. The aspects include how the productions presented the political instability caused by the domestic argument at the center of the plays; the supernatural and embodied ghosts; and the use of projection and the privileged access to the onstage (and sometimes offstage) events that technology affords. Click for larger view View full resolution Margaret (Minne Gale) and company in Henry VI: Rebellion, dir. Owen Horsley. Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), 2022. Photo by Ellie Kurttz, courtesy of the RSC. In the first two plays of this cycle (Horsley’s Henry VI: Rebellion and Henry VI: Wars of the Roses), political instability was visually represented [End Page 148] through the use of the multi-leveled set. The set appeared in the first play as a set of clearly defined black platforms, but by the end of the second, it had been exploded into mounds of rubble and pits of earth. In Rebellion, there were seemingly no rules about which character sat or stood where, or who was above whom in terms of the hierarchy of the court. For example, both Henry (Mark Quartley) and Margaret (Minnie Gale) perched on the edge of a platform whilst the rebellious Yorkist faction stood looking down on them, asserting their treasonous aspirations physically. When Henry collapsed in grief after the death of Humphrey, the rest of the court stood over his limp body. Characters constantly moved between levels—everything was unsteady and unstable; nothing about the political situation felt solid. The first time there was a sense of stability as reflected in the set’s use of levels was during the Cade rebellion after the first of two intervals in Rebellion, creating a striking stage image for the audience members to return to. Cade (Aaron Sidwell) spatially held a superior position than Henry. He stood on the central platform, looking down at the commons that (literally) looked up at and to him...