Shakespeare in Britain, 1974

Abstract

HE 1974 Stratford upon Avon season was not sensibly planned. It opened with a King John, about which the less said the better, continued with Cymbeline, a difficult and unpopular play, and ended with a revival of Richard II. By the time the Shakespeare Summer School was assembling at the beginning of August these were the only plays in the repertoire-short measure for nearly five months. Then the Stratford company moved to London, and the company from the Aldwych opened in Stratford with Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure. When the biennial Shakespeare Conference, attended by scholars from all over the world, met in September, the second of these was the only production they could see. Common courtesy, as well as common sense, dictated a more generous menu; and why reserve the pfat de choix-Macbeth with Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren-until the end of October? The Royal Shakespeare Company should pay a little more attention to their audience-a fact of which empty seats have been quick to remind them. King John is not the most interesting of Shakespeare's Histories, but if it is worth producing at all it is worth producing as Shakespeare wrote it. That is the least compliment owing to the dramatist, and the dramatist's birthplace. The pastiche offered up to us by John Barton might have enlivened the fringe of the Edinburgh Festival or the provocative stage of the Royal Court in London, although enlivening was the last adjective one applied to it. simple, straightforward, vigorous, chronicle play was dragged out for an hour beyond its normal length by interpolations from its original sources, and its design hopelessly obscured. This is the second time in the last few years that King Jthn has tempted Stratford to impertinence. Shakespeare is not always a perfect dramatist, but it is perilous to think you can improve him. The King was turned into a jittery buffoon, whereas the whole point of the play is the support that he still deserves from Faulconbridge; and Faulconbridge, who reconciles loyalty and cynicism and holds the play together, became a semi-relevant accessory. Richard Pasco, excellent casting for the part in an honest production, seemed unhappy with relegation to the sidelines, and I am not surprised that, when the play was unwisely brought to London for a few performances, he asked to be replaced. Emrys James, on the other hand, who could have been equally good as the King, seemed happier than he had any right to be. A bad is better than no king would appear to be Shakespeare's conclusion in writing King John; but it is unsafe to draw the corollary from this that a bad production is better than no production, particularly when the play in question is a travesty of what Shakespeare wrote. I saw Cymbeline at a first preview, which was hardly giving it a chance.