The first part of Henry IV has traditionally been viewed as a coming-of-age story, and so it is unsurprising to see Gregory Doran’s production for the Royal Shakespeare Company focuses heavily on motifs of maturation. In a pleasantly surprising twist, however, the RSC version expands these themes beyond the play’s young protagonist. In characterizing not only Prince Hal but Hotspur as overgrown children struggling desperately to navigate in a world they are not emotionally equipped to handle, Doran shifts the emotional focus of the play from the achievement of maturity to the prolongation of arrested childhood.
Prince Hal is a figure that invites multiple interpretations of his character, as the play’s script always leaves ambiguous his true motives for associating with Falstaff’s crew and how honest his interactions are with the King. For example, Tom Hiddleston’s Prince Henry in The Hollow Crown comes off as a Machiavellian schemer who is playing his lord father as much as he is manipulating Falstaff. The RSC production chooses to play Hal almost entirely differently; Alex Hassell’s prince is no mastermind working to control others’ perceptions of him but a hedonistic boy trying to appear more regal for the sake of his father’s approval.
How Hassell plays Hal’s monologue at the Act One Scene Two is exemplary of how he interprets the character of the Prince of Wales. I read the speech, in which Hal promises to “imitate the sun” by throwing off his friends just as the sun might disperse with clouds, as the first insight into the intellectual, scheming side of Hal, a glimpse into the method behind the madness, rendered especially gripping by its juxtaposition with the frivolity and levity of the preceding scene in the Eastcheap bar. In my previous course on Shakespearean Genres, the words “cold” and “chilling” were used by my classmates to describe this speech and what it reveals about Prince Henry’s character. But Hassell’s Henry appears no less childish when giving this monologue as he did when joking with Falstaff moments before. In the bar scenes, this Henry bounces around with a childish excess of energy, jumping on Poins’s back and rolling around like a boy. When giving this speech, Hassell continues to strut around the stage as if trying to burn off excess energy. At the close of the speech, when Henry promises to “so offend, to make offence a skill;/ Redeeming time when men think least I will,” he slides to the floor like the guitarist in a bad 80’s stadium rock band. The contrast of the gravity of the lines, in which Hal reveals his capacity for manipulation, and the lightness of Hassell’s body language jangles a little too much for my taste. It does, however, serve to reinforce (albeit clumsily) this production’s interpretation of Hal as an overgrown child.
Even more surprising are the choices made with regards to Hotspur’s character. In Shakespeare’s script, Hotspur seems to be the son whom King Henry IV would sincerely wish was his: he is by no means perfect (see his relationship with Lady Percy), but he is valiant fighter and truly loyal to his family. In other words, he embodies many of the ideals that Henry IV finds lacking in the future Henry V. In this production, Trevor White’s Hotspur is even more a child than Hassel’s Hal. This production’s Hal rough-houses with Poins as if they are both school children, but its Hotspur stamps his feet and screams like a toddler. After King Henry refuses to ransom Mortimer, White has his Hotspur throw a temper tantrum more befitting a baby than the chivalrous warrior he is supposed to be. Indeed, I began to wonder how this Hotspur had cultivated such a fine reputation as a man of honor given his seeming inability to function at the level of a regular adult, much less an admirable or respectable one. And unlike Hal, Hotspur is not allowed the chance to grow up: he seems just as childish and immature at the Battle of Shrewsbury as he is at the play’s opening. Consequently, one gets the impression that Hal’s slaying of Hotspur functions as his vanquishing his own riotous immaturity. Though Henry IV, Part 1 has always been the story of Hal’s immaturity, this RSC production expands its exploration of the themes of youth and maturation by making Hotspur even more childish than his eventual killer.
As Shakespeare’s script already draws many parallels between Hotspur and Hal, the directorial choice to mirror their mannerisms and actions on stage is an easy one, but in one particular instance of mirroring Doran displays a flash of genius. In the third scene of Act One, when Hotspur, Northumberland, and Worcester decide to rebel against Henry, both Northumberland and Worcester grab Hotspur by his ear when his antics begin to annoy them. Northumberland, Hotspur’s father, even forces his grown son (who, remember, is a renowned fighter) to the ground after he gets him by the ear. Later, in Scene II of Act Three, while rebuking Prince Hal for his behavior, King Henry grabs his son by the ear and drags him about. By having both men similarly treated by their respective fathers, Doran not only draws an equivalence between Hotspur and Hal but highlights their immaturity. In showing both characters be disciplined like children by their sires, this production stresses that both the play’s protagonist and antagonist may look like strong young men but in reality are emotionally arrested youths struggling to coexist with their fathers.
Themes of immaturity and growing up are central to the story of Henry IV, Part 1, but in this Royal Shakespeare Company production, those issues become a central emotional crux of the play. Hassell plays his Hal as even more immature than he would appear on the page, and White’s Hotspur, far from being the chivalrous paragon of manliness he is spoken of as being, comes off as a screaming child. In one particular brilliant motif of mirroring, Doran has both nominal young men dragged around by their ears by their fathers, highlighting the similarity between the two supposed adults and their immaturity. By so emphasizing the arrested development of the play’s central characters, Doran and the Company refocus the play from being a celebration of maturation to becoming an examination of those who fail to grow up.