Thus, revisiting the text is both a joyful experience and a slightly dangerous one. Joyful because of memories evoked from previous encounters with the play on stage or on screen; dangerous because such memories can easily influence the impartiality of one’s reading. A colourful character like Falstaff may be seen in numerous ways, but as one reads his lines it is so very, very tempting to conjour up performances of the past. I should state, right away, that I am a huge Falstaff fan, and consider him the finest comic character ever created, so this entry will probably be more slanted to him than to any of the play’s other characters, but that is not to say they are any less interesting in their own right. Falstaff, after all, is essentially nothing more than a sidekick, the amusing supporting role, who (as is so often the case) creates such a mark that his character towers above all others in people’s minds, and leaves us wanting more, much more –fortunately, Shakespeare quickly ”got” this, and the character will appear in two more plays, including the direct sequel to this one. Here he represents one extreme –we are drawn to him much as Prince Hal is, and though we may be frequently appalled by his behaviour, we are fascinated by his audacity and sheer mastery of life and living to the full.
However, the play is titled Henry the Fourth (in nature and character the king is Falstaff’s direct opposite), and the serious action of the play concerns Henry's uneasy reign and his attempts to quell rebellion from disgruntled former allies who have now turned against him. There is a tenseness about Henry that prevails throughout, and he is both burdened with feelings of guilt about his own accession to the throne (by overthrowing Richard II), and exasperated by the seeming inadequacy of his heir, the young Prince Hal, whose happy-go-lucky, carefree lifestyle of drinking and partying with miscreants like Falstaff, is anything but what the King expects or needs from his successor. The king regards his son as a failure, a loser, and admires far more in this respect the other Henry of the play –Hotspur, the son of his main enemy who seems to embody all the traits and character that the king’s own son lacks. And really, the central conflict of the play is this personal one between father and son, rather than the grander conflict of warring factions. Thus, the play is essentially very personal and immediate, and gripping too because we are right in there seeing the king trying to hold things together in both his kingdom and his family. The ironic conceit, of course is that everyone encountering the play knows (or should know) that Prince Hal will come up to scratch and later become the most illustrious and heroic of all English Kings, Henry V, and Shakespeare drops a few hints about this here and there, and part of the brilliance of Henry IV Part One is the way Hal is suspended between the influence of Falstaff and his crowd on one side and the King and court and his duty on the other. Though both are important to him he cannot play to both masters, and it is through learning from both and choosing between them that we see him becoming the great king to be.
Aside from all this Henry IV Part One is a glorious patchwork of England at this time. The many memorable scenes in the tavern seem ageless –though nominally set in the early1400s they would be instantly recognizable to Elizabethan audiences who first saw the play, and are just as much so today –every pub has its braggarts, its gullible hangers-on, its storytellers and its pranksters. And there are plenty of memorable set-pieces, both in this tavern setting and elsewhere throughout the play. My personal favourite is Falstaff’s boasting of how he fought off an attack by two... four... seven... nine... ruffians, his lies and exaggerations growing from line to line. And anyone looking for colourful insults to add to their repertoire need look no further than the marvellously salty exchanges of name-calling between Prince Hal and Falstaff. Shakespeare must surely have enjoyed creating them as much as we delight in hearing them! (see the exchange under Favourite line(s) below for an example)
Finally, I must mention briefly two of the female characters that inhabit this otherwise very male play. Lady Percy (the wife of Hotspur) is a relatively small but memorable part, with a great speech and scene with her husband in Act II, and one almost wishes she featured more in the play. And Mistress Quickly, hostess of the Boar’s Head, makes the first of her several appearances in Shakespeare’s works. She, like the other ”regulars” of the tavern can very easily be overplayed or presented as mere bawdy caricatures, but I think there is a lot more to her than this, and intelligent productions cotton on to that without negating her comic role. She is a bit like a mother hen to all these miscreants, someone they so often take for granted, but without whom they (and the play itself) would be all the poorer.
Favourite Line(s):
Prince Hal (of Falstaff)
..this sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh–
Falstaff (to Prince Hal)
’Sblood, you starveling, you eel-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish – O for breath to utter what is like thee! – you tailor’s yard, you sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck!
(Act II, Sc.4)
Character I would most like to play: Falstaff (again) or Hotspur
