Queen Margaret (NHB Modern Plays) E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 102

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Hungry for power and angered by their king, the nobles of Henry VI's court plot and scheme against each other. As Henry wavers and the factions split, Queen Margaret is determined to hold on to power and protect the crown that will one day belong to her son. Using Shakespeare's original lines, alongside new text, Jeanie O'Hare retells the Wars of the Roses through the eyes of the Queen. A captivating exploration of an iconic moment in British history, the play premiered at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, in September 2018, directed by Elizabeth Freestone and featuring Jade Anouka as Margaret of Anjou. 'This lady excelled all others, as well in beauty and favour, as in wit and policy, and was of stomach more like a man than a woman' - Holinshed's Chronicles, 1577

Leseprobe

Jeanie O’Hare

QUEENMARGARET

taken from William Shakespeare

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Introduction

Original Production

Dedication

Characters

Queen Margaret

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

IntroductionJeanie O’Hare

I admit it took me a while to give myself permission to do this project. We English are very squeamish about altering Shakespeare. Our cousins in Germany thrive on radical undoings of our scared son, but we cross our arms and say no. I started thinking about making this play when I was working at the Royal Shakespeare Company ten years ago. Queen Margaret thumped me in the heart as I watched Katy Stephens’ performance in Michael Boyd’s production of the Complete History Cycle. She then nagged at me every day as I nodded to the enormous photo of Peggy Ashcroft in full battledress in the reception of the RSC’s London offices. If I did what I wanted to do, some people would get upset – we know who they are – and there wasn’t an anticipated slur that didn’t curdle my blood at 4 a.m. for many a night.

But still the idea wouldn’t go away. Permission came from knowing some of Shakespeare’s history plays were already a collaboration. Marlowe is probably in there, and possibly other hands too. To join the collaboration was surely not a crime. Then the Manchester’s Royal Exchange offered me a commission, and at last the opportunity to put this idea to the test had arrived.

For me, Queen Margaret is the history play that has been there in plain sight for four hundred years. Shakespeare wrote more lines for her than he did for King Lear, but because they are scattered across four plays (Henry VI, Parts One, Two and Three, and Richard III), the first three of which are very rarely performed, she remains largely unknown. She ruled England for over twenty years, but hardly a soul has heard of her. She is too important a role to be left unperformed, or, perhaps even worse, left in tatters yet again in another boys-own edit of the War of the Roses.

When I started I had a series of scenes, but not a play. My approach was in part that of a jeweller, creating a setting for the precious stones that were the set-piece scenes: the throne room, the killing of York, the death of the prince. To create this setting and allow the scenes to deliver their full emotional kick and consequence I had to create supporting material. I gave myself three rules: to use only words that were available to Shakespeare; only use images from his vast image bank; and only explore themes that he explored. Nothing contemporary would be imposed on the play.

So to write this additional material the question of verse inevitably came up. Surely I wasn’t going to write in iambic pentameter? The answer is yes and no. The way I have written it is to trust the human body in the same way Shakespeare did. So an iamb is the beat of the human heart, ‘de-dum de-dum’, and the five double beats in a line are what you can comfortably say on one lungful of air. The pentameter is Shakespeare’s heart at rest. When he gets excited, or sad, or aroused, he disrupts the rhythm of what he says, exactly as we do in everyday speech. We naturally talk in an underlying rough pentameter in the English language. We naturally break it when we shout or cry, or when our breathing and heartbeat are disrupted by love.

The other thing (which, if I am honest, it hurt to do) was take out all of the ‘forsooths’ and ‘thees’ and ‘thous’. Often these are filler words, used when Shakespeare is slavishly trying to make up the right number of syllables for a line. If you strip the text of this layer of clutter, the modernity of what is left is striking. Then adding in new text is still daunting – but less impossible.

The War of the Roses is fundamentally a clash of families (Game of Thrones’ Starks and Lannisters are based closely on the Yorks and the Lancasters), so I needed to find out the family background that Margaret was bringing to this fight. Her grandmother was Yolanda of Aragon, the patron of Joan of Arc and the mother-in-law of the French King. Yolanda had political reach across all of France and knew how to wield power. Margaret would have grown up witnessing political machinations, thinking about Joan morning, noon and night, and understanding how symbolism and divine right are central to monarchy. Yolanda also belonged to a tradition of women warriors of France, Eleanor of Aquitaine being chief amongst them – a warrior queen also married to an English king.

Although I have not imposed a contemporary sensibility onto the play, there is one deliberate twentieth-century addition. The Battle of Towton was the greatest loss of English lives in a single day until the first day of the Somme. The Towton hymn is based on a First World War poem by Canadian poet Marjorie Lowry Pickthall called ‘Marching Men’. Pickthall, writing in 1922, was reaching back into medieval warfare to find an image for that slaughter. Adrienne Quartly, our composer and sound designer, has written the music for a hymn based on her words.

When we began rehearsing this two-hour play about the civil war in England, the Brexit parallels jumped out. The Cade Rebellion and Shakespeare’s canny exploration of how elites use populism to gain power is starkly relevant to what we are currently living through. The play also taught me a lot about how European we really are. We have been a little bit French since that bloke from Normandy conquered us in 1066. Our kings had French as their mother tongue for generations. Writing in September 2018, with political chaos all around us, I am struck by the idea that we have decided our future whilst not really understanding our past.

With thanks to Jacob Robbins for story advice and the loan of his Star Wars figures, and to Elizabeth Freestone for everything.

Queen Margaret was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, on 14 September 2018, with the following cast:

QUEEN MARGARET

Jade Anouka

BAGOT / PRINCE EDWARD /

Islam Bouakkaz

RUTLAND    

YORK

Lorraine Bruce

SUFFOLK / CLIFFORD

Samuel Edward-Cook

EDWARD IV / CARDINAL

Dexter Flanders

HUME

Helena Lymbery

JOAN OF ARC

Lucy Mangan

SOMERSET / RICHARD

Kwami Odoom

GLOUCESTER / TUTOR

Roger Morlidge

WARWICK

Bridgitta Roy

HENRY VI

Max Runham

Director

Elizabeth Freestone

Designer

Amanda Stoodley

Lighting Designer

Johanna Town

Sound Designer/Composer

Adrienne Quartly

Movement Director

Vicki Manderson

Fight Director

Kenan Ali

For Sheila O’Harethe original warrior queen

Characters

MARGARET of Anjou, Queen to King HenryKing HENRY VIPRINCE EDWARD, Prince of Wales, their son*

JOAN of Arc

Humphrey, Duke of GLOUCESTER, uncle to Henry VI*Earl of WARWICK, first lord of the North, kingmakerCARDINAL Beaufort, uncle to Henry VI

Duke of YORKEDWARD, his son, later King Edward IV*RICHARD, also son to Duke of York, later Richard III*Earl of RUTLAND, son to Duke of York*

Duke of SOMERSET*Duke of SUFFOLK*Lord CLIFFORD*

HUME, a petitioner, a page, a scribe, a pickpocket, a soldier, a courtier

BAGOT, a Petitioner*

TUTOR to Rutland*

Chorus of attendants, messengers, soldiers, drummers, heralds

* roles that must be doubled with a cast of eleven actors

A forward slash (/) in the text marks the point at which the next speaker interrupts, or continued speech.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

Prologue – Margaret Remembers France

London. The Parliament.

Enter MARGARET, smoking a cigarette. Enter JOAN.

JOAN.

King of England,

And you archers, foot soldiers, gentles and others,

Retire in God’s name to your own country.

No man can take the throne of France by force.

Only God divines it so. Only God.

Sounds of battle.

The English have the field, the Frenchmen fly.

Now help me, familiar spirits

From the powerful regions about this earth,

Help me once more, that France may get the field.

Nothing.

O, hold me not with silence over-long!

Nothing.

My fallen soldiers cannot help me now.

This battlefield is scattered with their limbs.

Open heaven! That their souls may fly to God.

Nothing.

And here I stand alone, forsaken while

France must let her head fall into England’s lap.

My holy incantations are too weak,

And hell is here,

Enter YORK.

with savage consequence.

YORK attacks JOAN. She is taken.

YORK.

Joan of Arc, damsel of France,

I have you fast. Where is your God now?

Still, wriggling hag, enchantress, hold your tongue!

Curse all you want when you burn at the stake.

JOAN (responding to her grasp).

Lord of York,

You want the grace and power others have.

You crave the crown of England. Lust for it.

It pollutes your thoughts each waking hour,

You are stained with the blood of innocents,

Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices.

YORK.

What witchcraft is this?

JOAN.

May never glorious sun reflect his beams,

Upon your family and your progeny,

But darkness and the gloomy shade of death,

Environ you, till mischance and despair

Drive you to a savage death.

YORK.

Ay, ay! Away with you to execution!

Never will York be cut down by a maid.

Exit. MARGARET stubs out her cigarette.

ACT ONE

Scene One – Ten Years Earlier, Margaret Arrives in England

London. The Palace.

HENRY.

Welcome all from your happy voyage from France.

SUFFOLK.

Your High Imperial Majesty

I have performed my task. And humbly now,

In sight of England and her lordly peers,

Deliver up to you, your Queen.

The happiest gift that ever Marquess gave,

The fairest queen that ever king received.

HENRY.

Suffolk, we thank you. Welcome, Queen Margaret.

I can express no kinder sign of love

Than this kind kiss. O Lord, that lends me life,

Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!

For you have given me in this beauteous face

A world of earthly blessings to my soul,

If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.

MARGARET embraces him, a faux pas.

MARGARET.

Great King of England and my gracious lord,

The mutual conference that my mind hath had,

With you, by day, by night, waking and in my dreams,

In courtly company or at my beads,

Makes me the bolder to salute my king

With ruder terms, such as my wit affords

And over-joy of heart doth minister.

HENRY.

Such is the fullness of my heart’s content.

Lords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.

ALL.

Long live Queen Margaret, England’s happiness!

MARGARET (aside).

So here the son of Henry Five and there the brother.

And these fellow nobles I will soon embrace.

Such a happy breed.

I thank you all.

SUFFOLK.

My Lord Protector, so it please your grace,

Here are the articles of contracted peace

Between our sovereign and the French King Charles.

GLOUCESTER (reads).

‘Imprimis, it is agreed between the French

King Charles, and the Marquess of Suffolk,

ambassador for Henry King of England, that

the said Henry shall espouse the Lady Margaret,

daughter unto Reignier King of Naples, Sicilia and

Jerusalem, and crown her Queen of England before the

thirtieth of May next ensuing. Item, that the duchy

of Anjou and the county of Maine shall be released

and delivered to the King her father’ –

(Drops the paper from his hand.)

HENRY.

Uncle, how now!

GLOUCESTER.

Pardon me, gracious lord,

Some sudden qualm has struck me at the heart

And dimmed my eyes that I can read no further.

HENRY.

Suffolk, I pray, read on.

SUFFOLK (reads).

‘Item: It is agreed that the duchies of Anjou

and Maine shall be released and delivered over to the King

her father,

and she sent over of the King of England’s own

proper cost and charges, without having any dowry.’

HENRY.

They please us well. Lord Marquess,

We here create you the first Duke of Suffolk.