Fathers and Sons

By Gerald Clarke

The Shakespeare Plays, PBS, 8p.m. E.S.T., starting March 26

Everybody applauded when the BBC announced that it would bring all of Shakespeare's 37 plays to television, and clapped again when the first six were aired on PBS last year. The second round of applause was more out of duty than enthusiasm, however: with the exception of Richard II, the productions were disappointing. But with the next three plays--Henry IV, Parts One and Two, and Henry V-- the series has redeemed itself and given lively hope for the future.

The three plays have been called the Henriad, so smoothly does one follow another. In Richard II, Henry Bolingbroke deposed and killed the sybaritic Richard and took for himself the title of Henry IV. As Henry IV, Part One, begins, he discovers that, having usurped the crown, he is himself beset by usurpers. The Percy family, which helped him to the throne, has learned too well the lesson of rebellion. The firebrand of the family, young Hotspur, refuses to accede to the new king's demands for prisoners captured in a conflict along the Scottish border. The result is the civil war between Henry and his former allies that provides the basic plot for both parts of Henry IV.

Those two plays might better be called Fathers and Sons. While he is battling the Percys, Henry is also fighting for the loyalty and affection of his son and heir, Prince Hal. Hal, that "nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales," as Hotspur derisively calls him, has given himself up to bad living and bad companions, led by the fat and riotous Falstaff; his revolt against duty is a more serious threat to Henry's kingdom than Hotspur and all his kin. The distraught Henry wishes that Hotspur had been his son and it could be proved that "some night-tripping fairy" had switched babies in their cradles.

The tug of war between Henry and Falstaff, or order and disorder, for the allegiance of Hal is the dominating theme of the first two Henrys. But what neither man knows is that the outcome has been foreordained: Hal, the consummate politician, is only pretending to be bad so that when it is time to be good he will seem all the better. "Yet will I imitate the sun," he says, "who may be more wonder'd at, by breaking through the foul and ugly mists of vapors that did seem to strangle him." Fortunately Shakespeare gives Hal a heart as well as a scheming head, and it is not certain until he becomes king that he will keep his promise to himself. By the time the third play, Henry V, begins, he is already the hero-king, preparing to enjoy that ancient English sport -- invading France.

Hal's transformation from brat to warrior is a shaky bridge for any actor to walk. Audiences have always found it hard to sympathize with his duplicity in leading on a lovable rogue like Falstaff, and the actor who plays him must make his deviousness seem right as well as log ical. To preserve his life and his position he must be more clever than other men: he is the son of a regicide and knows that the throne he will inherit has been made slippery by blood. "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," cries his father. David Gwillim adroitly captures all Hal's contradictions; then, like a master potter, he molds them into that noble vessel, Henry V.

Falstaff, Shakespeare's greatest comic invention, is scarcely an easier part to play, but Anthony Quayle makes it seem not only simple, but natural, as if he had grown into it, just as Falstaff grew into his big belly. His most eloquent speech comes not from his mouth, but from his eyes, when Hal, now king, repudiates both him and his own past misdeeds: "I know thee not, old man . . . Presume not that I am the thing I was." Jon Finch is also good as Henry IV, who has won a crown but lost his peace of mind. The greatest honors must go to David Giles. It is probably no accident that he directed all three of these superb productions, as well as the equally fine Richard II.

--Gerald Clarke

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.