Joan of Arc burnt at stake

Inside Shakespeare’s mind - Henry IV (Part I):

One wonders when Shakespeare wrote plays in the lives and reigns of kings, whether he paused to reason out such plays could be mounted or boarded? May be much later they could have stretched across films or televised.

But then, Shakespeare was not thinking of such possibilities of the future. He was not to know how gloriously his plays would span in spectacular settings.

He was satisfied with the Blackfriare and Globe settings.

Today’s thespians

Today, far removed from his time, the dialogue keeps improving with more brilliance from their origin as the Thespians of today render them in eloquence.

Sited in England and France and written in 1589-90, Henry VI, is all about war in France when England try vainly to hold their strength and assessed superiority. There is a perilous breakdown of order in England. Fatal to campaign abroad, internal dissent presages civil war. They feel the breakdown.

Joan of Arc sees herself as a vision carrying out the purpose of God. A painting by Lionel Royer.

At Westminster Abbey the news of Henry V passing away arrive along with the French beating back the English army. They had also captured the valiant general, Talbot and the Dauphine is crowned. Back in Gloucester, Lord Protector who is the uncle of young Henry VI is in disagreement with the Bishop of Winchester who is Henry's great-uncle. They are at odds over many reasons. In France a young maid by the name of Joan La Pucelle, later to become Joan of Arc, a saint and warrior, is condemned as a harlot and a witch. They accuse her as being in league with powers of darkness. However, she raises the seige of Orleans, later burnt at stake.

Secured Frenchmen

(Before Orleans; Enter Talbot, Bedford, Burgundy)

Talbot – Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgendy by whose approach the region of Artols, Wallon and Picardy are friends to us. This happy night the Frenchmen are secured....

Bedford – Coward of France, how much he wrong his fame, despairing of his own arm's fortitude to join with witches and the help of hell.

But traitors have never other company. But what's that Purcelle whom they term so pure?

Tal. - A maid they say

Bed. - A maid? And be so martial

Burgendy – Pray God she prove not masculine ere long, if underneath the standard

French she carry armour as she hath begun ...

- Act II Sce. I

A feud between the ambitious Richard Plantagent and the Earl of Somerset in London claiming the throne, moves to the symbolic plucking of roses in Temple Gardene: a white rose for the Plantagenet and a red rose for the Somerset. Richard is made Duke of York by King Henry and later crowned King of France in Paris. La Pucelle captures but loses later. But Rouen wins the support of the Duke of Burgundy.

With the hope of making peace among the English fractions, Henry puts on a red rose saying, ‘I see no reason if I were this rose.

That anyone should therefore be suspicious

I more incline to Somerset than York’

No reinforcement reaches Talbot from the quarrelling noble and beleaguered with his son's death outside Bordeaux, Talbot dies a sad man. It is then that La Purcelle is taken prisoner before Angers, deserted by all her familiar spirits, and sent to the stake to burn. (La Purcelle, guarded and a shepherd)

Purcelle – First let me tell you whom you have condemned, not me begotten of a shepherd swain, but instead from the progeny of kings .... No misconceived; Joan of Arc hath been a virgin from her tender infancy. Chaste and immaculate in very thought, whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effus'd will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.

York – Ay, ay. Away with her to execution’

- Act. V, Sce. IV

Peace is patched between England and France. The unscrupulous Earl of Suffolk entranced by his captive, Margaret who is the beautiful daughter of Reigner who is the Duke of Anjou, plans to get her married to the King for his own gain and bring back Margaret as his Queen.

In performance

It is inhuman to act this play because of its vast involvement at war and, along with a long list of characters but ideally good for filming.

The play was acted appropriately at the Rose on Bankside, manipulated in short crisp scenes from the history of Edward Halle. Part I has divided scholars to many groups, thinking differently. But many scholars of history think this to be Shakespeare's apprentice work. I don't think so.

He has to be rigidly by history as well as its identified characters and Shakespeare rises to it. Highly popular at the beginning of the medieval era, it lapsed into silence until the restoration revived it in the 20th century.

However, it did have a single performance at Covent Garden in 1738. Many were surprised when Osmond Tearle selected Part I for revival at the old Stratford Memorial Theatre in 1889. This was three hundred years after the play was written.

Critical response

Frand Benson took on the challenge to stage this trilogy and Talbot became his central character. There were cuts to suit each and every production and some were not successful and had little critical response. Old Vic was a favourite stage to board many of the plays. Later in the 1950s Douglas Seale took on the trilogy and one of the three plays, opend at the Old Vic. The other two Parts extended up to 1953. Terry Hands directed an unusual adoption where the Countess of Auvergne seeks to entrap Talbot.

The War Of the Roses based on Henry I, won the Oivier Award for best director of the English Shakespeare Company's touring production in 1988.

A year later, the Royal Shakespeare Company presented their version with Michael Pennington.

Elsewhere in the USA, the first American performance was in 1935 at Pasadena Community Playhouse under the direction of Gilmore Brown.

The war of roses was seldom performed in the USA. It appeared at the Palace Theatre Stamford, Connecticut as part of the 1988 Stamford Shakespeare Festival. Peter Dew's television sequences had this trilogy titled, An age of Kings for the BBC in 1961.