It felt slightly odd to go to the cinema to watch a live broadcast of a play - but that's what we did. The Almeida Theatre production of Shakespeare's play about the downfall of Richard II.
It's Opening Night of The Tragedy of King Richard the Second, prepare for a battle of power! 👑
— Almeida Theatre (@AlmeidaTheatre) December 18, 2018
Richard II v Bolingbroke pic.twitter.com/sPXxKmdToZ
We were promised a 'visceral' production, and they were not wrong. By the end of the play, the cast and stark set were splattered with (presumably fake) blood, soil and water. I hadn't read the play previously, and the speed and energy of the production, along with it being quite heavily stripped down, made following every nuance of plot and argument tricky.
Richard's downfall, as told by Shakespeare, is due to a failure of his leadership. He is usurped by his cousin Bolingbroke who, upon ascending to the throne becomes Henry IV and who then starts to face the realities of the pressure of expectation upon him.
Richard sees himself (and him alone) as God's man - ordained for the throne - but sees no need for that to alter his behaviour or (as found frequently enough in the Old Testament) for there to be the possibility of God's anointing moving on where the King lacks the faithfulness God requires. The suspicion runs through the play that it was Richard who arranged for the death of the Duke of Gloucester. Gloucester had been a leader of a rebellious group of nobles against Richard and Richard would seem to have had him murdered in return. Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray accuse each other of treachery resulting in them challenging each other to a duel. Richard intervenes, but only at the very last minute suggesting a lack of seeing the need to address conflict at its root, and he sentences both men to banishment. Here Richard makes a second mistake. He banishes Mowbray forever (if, as history suggests, it was Mowbray who murdered Gloucester at Richard's behest then this banishment served to remove a key testimony against the King) but only banishes Bolingbroke for ten years - a sentence he almost immediately reduces to six, for no significant reason. Commentators suggest that these faults; indecisiveness, abruptness and arbitrariness are the flaws which lead inevitably to Richard's fall.
Bolingbroke, upon eventually being crowned, is then faced with several problems. Richard is still alive and imprisoned at Pomfret Castle, and so Henry feels he lacks legitimacy. He is also faced with adjudicating in family disputes which tax his patience. Sleep seems to desert him. Perhaps the syle of leadership which Richard shaped around himself, not least in the expectation of unquestioning obedience and fawning loyalty, has created a vacuum around his successor, leaving him devoid of people with skill and judgment of their own upon which he can rely.
The middle portion of the play is full of pathos. Richard realises the wane of his rule
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
but it is left to his uncle, John of Gaunt, to speak of his grief at the loss to the nation's prestige, diminished by the machinations at court
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
...
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
It is not only those in the positions of leadership who pay the price for their failures.
That England that was wont to conquer others
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
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