The revenge of the ghosts: 2H6
The second play this Saturday, 2H6, is on paper one of the weakest of the Histories, so I was very curious to see how this would turn out, after being pleasantly surprised by the production of 1H6. It turns out to be rather uneven, probably no surprise given the unevenness of the play itself, but some tricks are now growing old in this the sixth of the Histories. It’s initially slow, but things pick up considerably during the last hour. (spoilers coming up)
Gloucester’s ghost turns up to torment Beaufort on his deathbed, and the ghosts of both men watch as Suffolk gets his comeuppance. Not only do ghosts abound, but considerable liberties are also taken with the text to accommodate things like the substitution of the ghosts of the two Talbots into the scene where Suffolk is taken prisoner, and then killed, by the sailors.
The Talbots keep on coming back, turning up in the conjuration scene, at the very end where they observe the future Richard III killing Somerset, and also as followers of Jack Cade. In the case of the Cade rebellion they are not alone, in the crowd there’s also the ghost of Gloucester, Beaufort and the headless Suffolk, and I’m beginning to get a bit tired of these ghosts. I hope there aren’t any in 3H6, as I could do with a break from them, and there are bound to be ghosts galore once we get to R3.
Some scenes are just wonderfully absurd, like the two men wearing giant fish heads that dance across the stage with Suffolk’s headless body. They turn out to be Jonathan Slinger and Forbes Masson, who continue to force a member of the audience, who might have been a plant, up onto the stage to participate.
A bit of what seems to be on the spot adlibbing is going on in that scene, when the person hesitates to get up on stage Slinger encourages him with the words “we’ve been up here two days”, and when the man’s bag is emptied out onto the stage and revealed to contain a copy of R3 Slinger picks it up and goes “Richard Three” to which Masson quickly responds “I’ve seen it, it’s shit”. Slinger picks up the man’s programme and denounces it as the devil’s work, as it is “a book in his hand with red letters”, which it is of course.
Not sure if these bits are normally included in this production or if they’re just as into it and out of control as we are all feeling. Anyway, we’re all roaring with laughter and we sure need it at this point, and I’m way past caring about how the text is mucked about with. Also conspicuous is the writing on the bare chest of the butcher, which states “we’re ‘istry”, surely that isn’t usually there.
Time’s too short to go into more detail at this point, but I think we’re all having great, if exhausting, fun. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.
//Jenny
