This is the last of the twelve posts on Greg Doran's marvelous book My Shakespeare - A Director's Journey through the First Folio. Not just a memoir but also remarkable insights into the process of staging these plays at the various theatres in Stratford. These are the final three.
34 Henry V1 Part Three (Wars of the Roses)
- 2022: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.
- Broadcast to cinemas and released on DVD
In Greg's diary of 23rd April 2022: "Yesterday, I announced that I was stepping down as Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company after a decade in the job, and thirty five years after joining the company as an actor. This morning I scattered Tony's ashes in the Avon". There follows a long and poignant piece from his diary for that day.
This was the first mention of Tony's death and explains why there was the gap from June 2021 to April 2022 as mentioned before in Part 33. Greg had not directed these last two plays and that is why we only have two pages. But he's glad that they went so well under his watch. Mark Lawson in the Guardian gave the production five stars. In fact Erica Whyman had been Acting Artistic Director since Greg had taken compassionate leave to look after Tony.
30th December 2000 - The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
35 Richard 111
- 2022: Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.
- Recorded live, broadcast to cinemas and released on DVD.
Greg is back in the director's chair and this will be his last play as Artistic Director. Arthur Hughes is the RSC's first disabled actor to play Richard. Greg shows him a cabin trunk where Tony kept everything including scripts of all his performances including that for Richard 111. We hear so many interesting facts about RSC productions of this play over the years. Such as when actor manager Frank Benson in 1911 made the first silent film of Richard 111 in what is now the Swan theatre.
Greg reads Tyrant by Stephen Greenblatt that contains veiled refences to Trump and Putin. (See my review of the same book on this blog or on Goodreads). Then when the play was performed by the National Theatre of Budapest, how it had to close because of the audience's loud and long acclaim at the end; to the despair of the government.
Greg tells us that this is the longest play in the canon and that it is always cut. Greg takes out thirty percent which he hopes will come in just over two and a half hours. He describes in detail the scene that involves Arthur Hughes as Richard and Rosie Sheehy as Lady Anne (played with "ferocious fragility". And then on to other scenes described in depth and how they are worked through in rehearsal. They include when Richard is meeting Queen Elizabeth because he wants to marry her daughter, But she marries her off to Richmond instead.
Next up it's Richmond preparing for the Battle of Bosworth against the army of Richard. Greg is worried that they were in danger of over running the already long production. When he gathers the cast together before press night, he shows them a photo of himself at thirteen as Lady Anne in the Preston Catholic College production. But it's Tony who is never far away.
Note: I have seen Anthony Sher on stage three times: The Merchant of Venice at the Barbican Theatre on 28th May 1988 (see post of 21st August 2015, Greg Doran is Soliano), Travelling Light - a National Theatre production at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre (see post 30th March 2012 - gone are the days of decent plays here), and Death of a Salesman at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (see post of 4th May 2015).
24th May 2001 - The Young Vic, London
36 Cymbeline: An Epilogue
Greg remembers when he was assistant director for Bill Alexander's 1989 RSC production that starred Harriet Walter and Nicholas Farrell at Stratford's The Other Place. And how it was so successful that it transferred from that tiny theatre to the main stage.
Greg talks about handing over to the next Artistic Director and becoming the Artistic Director Emeritus. He leaves with some nice quotations from Washington Irving's visit to Stratford in 1815. We all have our own memories of that place.
27th July 2016 - The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
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