Opposing leaders, each asserting the legitimacy of their claim to power, sling insults and threats, unleash war. In the final section of Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy, advantage seesaws from side to power-and-riches-grabbing side. Then, as now, whichever faction gains temporary victory, the conclusion for ordinary people remains the same: death and desolation. A pivotal scene, hardly more than a sketch, midway through the play, drives this point home. Battle rages, violent and bloody; suddenly, a moment of calm: Henry, watching the to-and-fro of the fighting, sits alone on a molehill and compares the “sweet”, “secure” life of a shepherd to that of a king, burdened with “care, mistrust and treason” (Mark Quartley’s king swithers between feyness and foolishness). His musings are interrupted. A young fighter, about to rob the corpse of the man he has just slain, discovers his own father; an older combatant, similarly about to loot a body, discovers he has killed his son.
The impression of the chaos of war is the most powerful aspect of director Owen Horsley’s Wars of the Roses, one of two new RSC productions based on the Henry VI plays . Design (mud and ramps), costumes (armour, chainmail, robes), digital projections (stage battles filmed live and projected huge on to ribboned curtains), music and sound (clashing percussion and nerve-taut strings), along with performances (comradely chants, battle-weary panting, groaning of the mortally wounded) combine to emphasise the brutality and futility of violence.
Spectacular as this is, it’s not enough to sustain three hours’ interest. For that, we need strong characterisations and clear delivery; too little directorial attention has been given to acting and articulation. That said, Quartley’s Henry is well balanced by Oliver Alvin-Wilson’s ambitious, intelligent, martial York, while Arthur Hughes’s Duke of Gloucester is a brilliance of intensifying evil – a wicked Richard III in the making.
Wars of the Roses is at the Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, until 4 June
