Act II scene 1 - Ely House
Enter JOHN OF GAUNT sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, & c
JOHN OF GAUNT
Will the King come, that I may breathe my last
In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?
DUKE OF YORK
Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath,
For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
JOHN OF GAUNT
Oh but they say the tongues of dying men 5
Enforce attention like deep harmony;
Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear. 10
DUKE OF YORK
No, it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
As praises of his state: then there are sound
Lascivious Metres, to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen.
Report of fashions in proud Italy, 15
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.
Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity,
That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?
Then all too late comes counsel to be heard, 20
Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard:
Direct not him, whose way himself will choose:
'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.
JOHN OF GAUNT
Methinks I am a Prophet new inspired,
And thus expiring, do foretell of him, 25
His rash fierce blaze of Riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means soon preys upon itself. 30
This royal Throne of Kings, this scepter'd Isle,
This earth of Majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This Fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection, and the hand of war: 35
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone, set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a Moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier Lands, 40
This blessed plot, this earth, this Realm, this England,
This Nurse, this teeming womb of Royal Kings,
Fear'd by their breed, and famous for their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home.
This Land of such dear souls, this dear dear Land, 45
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now Leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a Tenement or pelting Farm.
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege 50
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With Inky blots, and rotten Parchment bonds.
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah! would the scandal vanish with my life, 55
How happy then were my ensuing death?
Enter KING RICHARD II and QUEEN, DUKE OF AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, LORD ROSS, and LORD FITZWATER, with NORTHUMBERLAND
DUKE OF YORK
The king is come; deal mildly with his youth,
For young hot Colts, being raged, do rage the more.
QUEEN
How fares our noble Uncle Lancaster?
KING RICHARD II
What comfort man? How is't with aged Gaunt? 60
JOHN OF GAUNT
O how that name befits my composition:
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast,
And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave, 65
Whose hollow womb inherits naught but bones.
KING RICHARD II
Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
JOHN OF GAUNT
No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great King, to flatter thee. 70
KING RICHARD II
Should dying men flatter with those that live?
JOHN OF GAUNT
No, no, men living flatter those that die.
KING RICHARD II
Thou now a-dying, say'st thou flatter’st me.
JOHN OF GAUNT
Oh no, thou dyest, though I the sicker be.
KING RICHARD II
I am in health, I breathe, I see thee ill. 75
JOHN OF GAUNT
Now he that made me knows I see thee ill:
Ill in myself to see, and in thee, seeing ill,
Thy death-bed is no lesser than the Land
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick,
And thou, too careless patient as thou art, 80
Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee.
A thousand flatterers sit within thy Crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head,
And yet encaged in so small a Verge, 85
The waste is no whit lesser than thy Land:
Oh had thy Grandsire with a Prophet's eye
Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd, 90
Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
Why, Cousin, wert thou Regent of the world,
It were a shame to let this Land by lease:
But for thy world enjoying but this Land,
Is it not more than shame, to shame it so? 95
Landlord of England art thou, and not King:
Thy state of Law is bondslave to the law,
And ---
KING RICHARD II
And thou, a lunatic lean-witted fool,
Presuming on an Ague's privilege,
Darest with thy frozen admonition 100
Make pale our cheek, chafing the Royal blood
With fury from his native residence?
Now by my Seat's right Royal Majesty,
Wert thou not Brother to great Edward's son,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head 105
Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.
JOHN OF GAUNT
Oh spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
For that I was his Father Edward's son:
That blood already, like the Pelican,
Thou hast tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused. 110
My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,
Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls,
May be a precedent, and witness good,
That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee, 115
These words hereafter thy tormentors be.
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave,
Love they to live that love and honor have.
Exit, borne off by NORTHUMBERLAND
KING RICHARD II
And let them die that age and sullens have,
For both hast thou, and both become the grave. 120
DUKE OF YORK
I do beseech your Majesty, impute his words
To wayward sickliness and age in him:
He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.
KING RICHARD II
Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his; 125
As theirs, so mine: and all be as it is.
Re-enter NORTHUMBERLAND
NORTHUMBERLAND
My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your Majesty.
KING RICHARD II
What says he?
NORTHUMBERLAND
Nay nothing, all is said:
His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent. 130
DUKE OF YORK
Be York the next that must be bankrupt so,
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
KING RICHARD II
The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he,
His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be:
So much for that. Now for our Irish wars; 135
We must supplant those rough rug-headed Kerns,
Which live like venom where no venom else
But only they have privilege to live.
And for these great affairs do ask some charge
Towards our assistance, we do seize to us 140
The plate, coin, revenues and moveables,
Whereof our Uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.
DUKE OF YORK
How long shall I be patient? Oh how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
I am the last of noble Edward's sons, 145
Of whom thy Father, Prince of Wales, was first:
In war was never Lion raged more fierce,
In peace was never gentle Lamb more mild,
Than was that young and Princely Gentleman;
But when he frown'd, it was against the French 150
And not against his friends: his noble hand
Did win what he did spend and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won:
His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin: 155
Oh Richard, York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.
KING RICHARD II
Why Uncle,
What's the matter?
DUKE OF YORK
Oh my Liege, pardon me if you please, if not 160
I pleased not to be pardon’d, am content with all:
Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
The Royalties and Rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true? 165
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
His Charters, and his customary rights:
Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day; 170
Be not thyself. For how art thou a king
But by fair sequence and succession?
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's right,
Call in his Letters Patent that he hath
By his Attorneys-general to sue 175
His livery, and deny his offer'd homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,
And prick my tender patience, to those thoughts
Which honor and allegiance cannot think. 180
KING RICHARD II
Think what you will: we seize into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.
DUKE OF YORK
I'll not be by the while: My liege, farewell,
What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell.
But by bad courses may be understood 185
That their events can never fall out good.
Exit
KING RICHARD II
Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight,
Bid him repair to us to Ely House
To see this business: tomorrow next
We will for Ireland, and 'tis time, I trow: 190
And we create in absence of ourself,
Our Uncle York, Lord Governor of England:
For he is just, and always loved us well.
Come on, our Queen, tomorrow must we part,
Be merry, for our time of stay is short. 195
Flourish. Exeunt KING RICHARD II, QUEEN, DUKE OF AUMERLE,
BUSHY, GREEN, and BAGOT
NORTHUMBERLAND
Well, Lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.
LORD ROSS
And living too, for now his son is Duke.
LORD FITZWATER
Barely in title, not in revenue.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Richly in both, if justice had her right.
LORD ROSS
My heart is great: but it must break with silence, 200
Ere't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Nay, speak thy mind: and let him ne'er speak more
That speaks thy words again to do thee harm.
LORD FITZWATER
Tends that thou’dst speak to the Duke of Hereford?
If it be so, out with it boldly man, 205
Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.
LORD ROSS
No good at all that I can do for him,
Unless you call it good to pity him,
Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne 210
In him a royal Prince, and many moe
Of noble blood in this declining Land;
The King is not himself, but basely led
By Flatterers, and what they will inform
Merely in hate 'gainst any of us all, 215
That will the king severely prosecute
'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.
LORD ROSS
The Commons hath he piled with grievous taxes
And quite lost their hearts: the Nobles hath he fined
For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts. 220
LORD FITZWATER
And daily new exactions are devised,
As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:
But what, o' God's name, doth become of this?
NORTHUMBERLAND
Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not.
But basely yielded upon compromise 225
That which his Ancestors achieved with blows:
More hath he spent in peace, than they in wars.
LORD ROSS
The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in Farm.
LORD FITZWATER
The King's grown bankrupt like a broken man.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him. 230
LORD ROSS
He hath not money for these Irish wars:
His burthenous taxations notwithstanding,
But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.
NORTHUMBERLAND
His noble Kinsman: most degenerate King.
LORD ROSS
We see the very wreck that we must suffer, 235
And unavoided is the danger now
For suffering so the causes of our wreck.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Not so: even through the hollow eyes of death,
I spy life peering: but I dare not say
How near the tidings of our comfort is. 240
LORD FITZWATER
Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.
LORD ROSS
Be confident to speak, Northumberland,
We three are but thyself; and speaking so,
Thy words are but as thoughts, therefore be bold.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Then thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a Bay 245
In Brittany, received intelligence,
That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,
His brother Archbishop, late of Canterbury,
Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,
All these well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne, 250
With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
Are making hither with all due expedience,
And shortly mean to touch our Northern shore:
Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay
The first departing of the King for Ireland. 255
If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
Imp out our drooping Country’s broken wing,
Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
And make high majesty look like itself,
Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh; 260
But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
Stay, and be secret, and myself will go.
LORD ROSS
To horse, to horse, urge doubts to them that fear.
LORD FITZWATER
Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.
Exeunt
Gaunt and York entered in the transition, climbing the stairs behind the center platform, then slowly making their way down the SL platform and onto the stage. Two chairs waited for them DSL, and as they talked and walked, Gaunt coughed, clearly in pain.
The scene was two old men talking alone, reminiscing about the way it used to be, the way it could've been.
York tries to comfort his dying brother, sympathizing and bemoaning the state of the world. The references to Bushy, Bagot, and Green made Gaunt laugh. The laughter turned to coughing in line 22, giving a double-meaning to the final line.
This speech, arguable the most famous speech in the play, was grounded in the England of the past and remembering how things used to be.
I had the actors improvise through the exchange, adding text that helped clarify the references. Then we ran through the scene again, using the text with verbalized reactions, which lead to specified moments; for example, lines 42-44 referred to their brother, Edward the Black Prince, and their father, Edward III.
Danny (playing Gaunt) and Chad (playing York) developed an honest exchange that did not feel like Shakespearean speechifying, but two brothers trying to make sense of a world that has become unrecognizable. It was all the more remarkable given that Danny was a sophomore and Chad a 3rd-year grad.
Richard and his retinue entered from under the SR platform, through the arches. The Queen and Richard both greeted Gaunt with kisses on the cheek, then Gaunt invited Richard to sit, with the Queen standing behind him. As the confrontation went on, she tried to keep him calm and measured, but Richard's hot temper would not be tamed. Richard and Gaunt laid into each other center stage, until Gaunt went off SL.
Reimagined as a text conversation, with memes and emojis from Richard, and decidedly fewer from Gaunt.
While barely developed in the text, we chose to dive deeply into Richard's relationship with his Queen. While historically he was betrothed to the underage Isabel at this time, we decided that the nature of their relationship felt more like his first marriage to Anne.
As a result, Brooke (who played the Queen) and Zeke (Richard) developed a strong relationship onstage. We spent half of one rehearsal improvising scenarios with music - their wedding dance, their public life, their private life. Brooke discovered that she is a force of nature behind Richard's public persona. In this scene, she becomes his anchor, keeping him from blowing up (until, of course, nothing will stop him).
York quickly takes Gaunt's place, both as Richard's central advisor and physically stepping into the space he had occupied. When Northumberland brings the news of Gaunt's death, York is the most affected, though it's fascinating that he never reaches out to his son, Aumerle, who is standing three feet away.
Northumberland has been present throughout the previous act, but this is the first time she speaks. Played by Rosalind Blume, a spitfire actor of pixie dimensions, this Northumberland was a female badass, holding her weight with the men of the older generation.
Richard gave a momentary show of shared grief with York, but quickly pivoted to obtain what he needs to fund the war in Ireland. It's a political move executed by someone who believes he is above the law.
York's response is complicated, and demonstrates the duality he will feel for the rest of the play - torn between the king he is supposed to support and the nephew he knows has been wronged.
The scene ends with Northumberland, Ross, and Fitzwater taking over the chairs where the brothers had sat, effectively creating a new advisory council, one that will serve Bolingbroke and seek to restore the balance that Gaunt and York had once upheld. We watch as trust is slowly established, the beginnings of a rebellion which will remake the country.
Ross and Fitzwater are interesting characters; in this version, they are combined with Willoughby and Surrey. They are the antidote to Bushy, Bagot, and Green, which was demonstrated in the costuming through color palette and silhouette. All of these male characters qualify as the kind of generic, forgettable, interchangeable characters that make the history plays so challenging to read or understand, especially for those new to Shakespeare.
I'm always eager to see what young actors will do with roles like this, and Caleb and Morgan did not disappoint. They developed a delightful sort of dramatic Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum, accompanying each other everywhere, always by each other's sides, and for the most part interchangeable. They stand in for all the nameless middle-class working adults who need to be better served by their government but are overlooked for the flashier suck-ups.
They exited over the low platform SL, pausing for a secret handshake in the musical transition.
The transition is inspired by "Daddy Lessons" by Beyonce. The song connects the powerful female presences, Northumberland and the Queen, between 2.1 and 2.2, and suggests how central they are to the story.
The transition choreography would have conveyed the uncertainty, fear, and concern felt throughout the kingdom at this point. But only some people have the ability to effect change.