Act V scene 2 - The DUKE OF YORK’s palace. - CUT
Act V scene 3 - A royal palace. - CUT
Act V scene 4 - The same. Night.
Enter KING HENRY, solus.
KING HENRY IV
So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands afar remote.
How many thousand of my poorest subjects 5
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 10
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody? 15
God knows,
By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways
I met this crown; and I myself know well
How troublesome it sits upon my head.
Enter BAGOT and Servant, unseen
I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bow'd the state
That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss.
It seems in me
But as an honour snatch'd with boisterous hand,
And I have many living to upbraid 25
My gain of it by their assistances;
Which daily grow to quarrel and to bloodshed,
Wounding supposed peace: all these bold fears
Thou see'st with peril I have answered;
For all my reign hath been but as a scene 30
Acting that argument: and only death
Changes the mode.
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell? 35
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. 40
Exit KING HENRY
BAGOT
Didst thou not mark the King what words he spake?
'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'
Was it not so?
Servant
Those were his very words.
BAGOT
'Have I no Friend?' quoth he: he spake it twice,
And urged it twice together, did he not? 45
Servant
He did.
BAGOT
And speaking it, he wistly look'd on me,
And who should say, ‘I would thou wert the man
That would divorce this terror from my heart,'
Meaning the king at Pomfret: Come, let's go;
I am the King's Friend, and will rid his Foe.
Exeunt
I cut a significant portion of the text, reassigning some parts to other characters and editing for clarity and time, but cutting these two scenes is perhaps the biggest change. In these scenes, York uncovers Aumerle's collusion with a plot to free Richard and overthrow Bolingbroke. The scenes have a distinctly comedic tone and introduce a new character, the Duchess of York. They are frequently cut in production, and for the story we were telling, I felt they simply weren't necessary, and would instead create a burden or barrier as we barreled towards the end of the play, both emotionally and energetically.
Instead, I added in a speech cobbled together from Henry IV part 1 and Henry IV part 2. I wanted to give us a chance to hear Henry's side; the audience spends so much time hearing Richard's thoughts, I wanted to offer a little more balance. This also creates justification for what Bagot thinks he hears and why he goes to kill Richard.
Oh yeah, that's another change. In Shakespeare's original, it's Sir Piers of Exton. I chose to remove the new character and instead finish the arc for a character we had already spent time with. Bagot sees this as an opportunity to prove his loyalty to Henry; dramatically, it's the completion of his arc in finally and completely abandoning Richard. Again, inspiration came from the RSC's production, which gave this role to Aumerle instead. I gave Aumerle a different ending (which you'll see in the next scene), and elected to finish Bagot's story with this choice. Bobby Haley, playing Bagot, delved deep into this new arc and gave it a beautiful complexity.
Henry delivered the monologue standing on the center platform with the throne, holding the crown in his hand.
Bagot and the servant (Mowbray's herald from 1.3) entered under the tall platform, hanging back in the shadows to listen until Henry exits. They came forward for their conversation, then left the way they entered as we transitioned to Pomfret.