The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Henry IV Part One showcases the similar immaturity of Hal and Falstaff while illustrating their growing distance in their relationship as Hal matures and Falstaff stays the same. Alex Hassell plays Hal as an irresponsible, chiefly pleasure-seeking young man. He spends his time drinking and making merry, and the first the audience sees of him is when he’s in bed with two women. This is not a calculating Hal who is only ruining his reputation to make his ultimate reformation look all the better – his attitude is too completely open and joyful for that. Hal’s “I know you all” speech, which on paper I tend to read as Hal revealing himself as a cold manipulator, comes across as an irresponsible young man trying to justify his behavior. He gestures to the audience at the beginning of the soliloquy, directly appealing to the audience, and during the speech, I felt as though he was trying to get us on his side. His warmth and openness made me see him as a young man who knows he’s behaving inappropriately, but is having too much fun to stop. Therefore, he promises that he’ll straighten up when he needs to, and tries to justify his past irresponsibility by saying that it’ll make him look all the better once he’s reformed. Hal is too free and openly affectionate with his friends in Eastcheap to be using them; not only does he have a close bond with Falstaff, but he even strikes the Lord Chief Justice in protecting Bardolph from arrest. Indeed, when referring to his eventual banishment of Falstaff in the phrase “I do, I will,” Hal’s tone is not one of cold rejection but deep sadness, with a long pause between the two phrases. He knows he must part from Falstaff in order to be a good king, but he regrets that necessity. In the first two acts of the play, before the interval, Hal lives a life of self-indulgence with vowed future reform. When rebellion strikes, he makes good on his promise.
Falstaff, on the other hand, Hal’s closest companion, is as immature at the end of the play as he is at its beginning. Falstaff’s an obviously immature character; the text tells us that he behaves as though he’s in his twenties while he’s in his sixties or seventies. However, Antony Sher’s performance takes it a step further. His Falstaff has a kind of endearing helplessness about him. In his introductory scene Hal has to help him drink, supporting him with a hand on his back and the other on the bottle. Later, when Poins and Hal have hidden Falstaff’s horse, he calls out their names so petulantly and pathetically that I felt terribly sorry for him. When he says that he can’t walk much farther without it, I didn’t hear it as a lazy complaint – I genuinely believed him. Although an old man, this Falstaff is a very childish character – in his irresponsible behavior and in his need to be taken care of. Nonetheless, Falstaff does recognize that he should change his lifestyle, and three times he swears to reform, pouring out his drink each time. As the repetition suggests, Falstaff fails each time, always reverting back to his earlier behavior. However, his failures do not invite contempt, but rather pity. Hal is still young, and his reformation is part of his natural growth and maturation. It is far too late for Falstaff to change. Sher illustrates this rather movingly as Falstaff wakes up from a night of heavy drinking with shaking hands, walking around the room, pouring the dregs from other glasses into his own. It shows a sad portrait of a man trapped by addiction. Although Sher’s portrayal invites audience sympathy, the second half of the play, Acts III through V, show the inevitability of Hal and Falstaff’s separation.
In the first two acts, Hal and Falstaff have one of the closest relationships in the play, even waking up in the same room together. They have the same sense of humor, love wit, and banter very well with each other. Both love to hear the other’s insults as much as they love to insult the other. In this production, neither is using the other, as sometimes I interpret their relationship. The sadness in Hassell’s delivery of Hal’s “I do, I will” line shows how much he cares for Falstaff, and when Falstaff asks Hal if he’s afraid of the upcoming rebellion, he doesn’t do it mockingly – he puts a hand on his shoulder, and his tone is one of deep and genuine concern. However, in the acts after the interval, the production shows Hal’s growing disappointment in Falstaff.
When the rebellion does hit, Hal begins to take his duties as prince seriously, just as he promised he would. He expects Falstaff to start behaving responsibly as well and acquires a command just for him. As he holds the paper out for Falstaff to take, not only does Falstaff not take it, but he even puts his hands behind his back – another childish gesture. Hal’s expression shows his displeasure, and he makes Falstaff take the command. However, doing so only leads to more frustration. When Hal sees the men that Falstaff has recruited, he becomes angry at their pathetic condition and, when Falstaff attempts to appease him by calling them food for cannons, he looks appalled. In continuing scenes until the end of the play, Hal is alternately infuriated and embarrassed by Falstaff’s behavior. Falstaff continues to behave immaturely – giving Hal a bottle of sack when he’s in desperate need of a weapon, and making an inappropriate jest in a serious atmosphere after a battle. Hal is as irresponsible and fun-loving as Falstaff in Eastcheap, but on the battlefield he knows that he must behave heroically. Falstaff doesn’t seem to understand the difference. The RSC’s production of Henry IV Part One shows Hal’s journey from careless youth to responsible adult, but Falstaff just isn’t capable of that kind of reformation anymore. On the page I tend to strongly dislike both Hal and Falstaff, and Hassell and Sher made me like them both. This Hal and Falstaff are sympathetic and likable, even with their clear flaws.