History Play (Rehearsed Reading)

Creators' Notes

Creator's History

My first exposure to Shakespeare, or to any kind of theatre really, was being made to watch a recording of Trevor Nunn’s 1979 MacBeth in high school. That high school was in Flint, in North Wales, about a mile from Flint Castle, which is where my family used to walk the dogs. Flint Castle is also where Richard II was captured by Henry IV in 1399; the setting of act 3, scene iii in Shakespeare’s Richard II.

I learned about this connection for the first time while doing the research for this show last year. Or perhaps our English teacher told us back then, but it seemed so incredibly dull at the time that I immediately forgot it. I only remember learning about dramatic irony, and writing a scathing essay about how theatre is really just an irrelevant hobby for a privileged few. After that I also quietly wrote a comic opera version of MacBeth which my mum apparently still has on cassette tape. I am not yet prepared to listen to it.

After that I went and did A-levels in Latin and Ancient History at a former boys’ school. A little classical education is a dangerous thing, as Bill comes to realise. I memorised plenty of Catullus to try to cheat at ‘unseen’ translations. Shakespeare’s sonnets are quite tame in comparison. I went to Oxford. I didn’t finish. I decided to go to drama school. Maybe I’d wanted to go to drama school ever since watching Trevor Nunn’s 1979 MacBeth, or maybe that’s just the story that fits best to connect these fragmented bits of history together.

One of the few real skills I acquired as an actor is being able to read Shakespeare aloud in a convincing way. But the work I’ve made since drama school has gone in a totally different, much more postdramatic European direction, with devising as the main part of the creative process. This will be the first time I’ve created something where there is a script before rehearsals (mostly anyway). Even when writing this play, I initially expected to make something more deconstructed. But somehow the content took hold of the form, and this is the result.

The latest part of my history is Hong Kong, and I’m very privileged to be able to write dialogue and songs in English and have a team that can make them work better in Cantonese. Thanks to Michelle and Bill for their patience, research, and translation, as well as the actors who continue to attempt to insert extra jokes.

Ivor Houlker

Creator's History

When I was choosing my stream of study in Secondary Three, I picked the science stream since "choosing science has more career options.” The last English reader that I had in the school curriculum was The Greek Gods in S3, and then basically I had no chance to be in touch with any sort of English literature until the end of high school. When I went to university, I chose the Department of English at the University of Hong Kong because "it was the only program I could get into, and the school and subject sounded more prestigious." Therefore, I had no idea about any of the theories or doctrines in literature and humanities, or which writers belonged to which periods or which theories. So when choosing subjects, I chose those with clear names, such as: ENGL 20xx: Shakespeare.

Shakespeare was probably the only writer I knew at the beginning of that semester. The four assigned plays were Titus Andronicus, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice... All are tragedies/comedies by Shakespeare, not a single history play. Looking back now, I doubt I even knew back then that Shakespeare wrote history plays, let alone the historical context in which he lived: late 16th-century England. The course also focused more on his construction of characters, and use of language; the author's historical context was rarely discussed. Or perhaps I was just missing out.

I was confused in class every day. I could neither understand, nor did I have the motivation to understand what was said. However, there was one class that left a deep impression on me. That class was taught by the then-Acting Dean, and that moment began with a question in class... 'So professor, what makes a good piece of literature to you? This was asked by the girl who never carried a notebook or a computer to class, had waist-length hair, and finally got a first-class honors degree. 'Good question. I think a good piece of literature should capture the essence of its time.' This answer is indeed insightful, concise and powerful, just like a "biblical quote"; of course, at that time I could only understand it superficially, and I was a long way from truly understanding it.

Today, I am very grateful that the process of creating this work gave me the opportunity to better understand this statement; although I know that I am still a long way from truly understanding it.

Michelle Li

History Play's History

This show began life as an idea about the start of British colonialism. John Dee’s ‘Brytanici Imperil Limites’ that first tried to justify the idea of a British Empire to Elizabeth I. Originally it would have involved Edmund Spenser in Ireland and perhaps somehow Edward Said. Then Christopher Marlowe and Mary Queen of Scots got involved. It was a chaotic jumble of interesting fragments. This could easily have ended up as a lecture with songs. The only fragments of the original content that survive are the Englishman chorus at the end of Act I, and the finale chorus melody. There were a lot of versions before something more focused started to take shape around Shakespeare’s connection to Essex’s Rebellion in 1601.

There are lots of different sources for the ‘history’ within the play, but Shakespeare’s part in it falls mostly into the realms of plausible or possible rather than provably true. I have tried to avoid the impossible, although some events are unrealistically compressed in the same way as Shakespeare’s history plays. If you’re interested to learn more, I can recommend: Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt, 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James S. Shapiro, Shakespeare’s “Histories” by Lily Bess Campbell, Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History, by Lytton Strachey. And of course Shakespeare’s history plays, sonnets, and even his narrative poems if you have a lot of patience.

When trying to put Shakespeare’s language in a local context, we’re forced to make a choice about how to interpret the verse. Is the literal meaning of every word necessary? Is the rhythm important? For me the interesting part is not the rhythm of iambic pentameter itself, but the fact that the author is playing within very specific constraints which inspire his linguistic flourishes. The flourishes don’t flourish so much in translation (nor will this sentence). So we looked for equivalents instead, with forms like Canton opera and rap. The forms help separate the layers of history, but perhaps also help relate the content to here and now, rather than there and then.