Henry IV, Part 1 (1990, Michael Bogdanov) part 12 of 17

Shakespeare's "King Henry IV, Part 1" performed by the The English Shakespeare Company

Falstaff - Barry Stanton
Bardolph - Colin Farrell (actor born 1938)
Mistress Quickly - June Watson
Henry Prince of Wales - Michael Pennington

Director Michael Bogdanov


From "AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMATIC CHARACTER OF SIR JOHN FALSTAFF" by Maurice Morgann (1777):

.....tho' employment
was only occasional, kept him always above contempt, secured him
an honourable reception among the Great, and suited best both with
his particular mode of humour and of vice. Thus living continually
in society, nay even in Taverns, and indulging himself, and being
indulged by others, in every debauchery; drinking, whoring,
gluttony, and ease; assuming a liberty of fiction, necessary perhaps
to his wit, and often falling into falsity and lies, he seems to have
set, by degrees, all sober reputation at defiance; and finding eternal
resources in his wit, he borrows, shifts, defrauds, and even robs,
without dishonour.-

Laughter and approbation attend his greatest
excesses; and being governed visibly by no settled bad principle or
ill design, fun and humour account for and cover all. By degrees,
however, and thro' indulgence, he acquires bad habits, becomes an
humourist, grows enormously corpulent, and falls into the
infirmities of age; yet never quits, all the time, one single levity or
vice of youth, or loses any of that chearfulness of mind, which had
enabled him to pass thro' this course with ease to himself and
delight to others; and thus, at last, mixing youth and age, enterprize
and corpulency, wit and folly, poverty and expence, title and
buffoonery, innocence as to purpose, and wickedness as to practice;
neither incurring hatred by bad principle, or contempt by
Cowardice, yet involved in circumstances productive of imputation
in both; a butt and a wit, a humourist and a man of humour, a
touchstone and a laughing stock, a jester and a jest, has Sir John
Falstaff, taken at that period of his life in which we see him,
become the most perfect Comic character that perhaps ever was
exhibited.

It may not possibly be wholly amiss to remark in this place, that I
Sir John Falstaff had possessed any of that Cardinal quality,
Prudence, alike the guardian of virtue and the protector of vice; that
quality, from the possession or the absence of which, the character
and fate of men in this life take, I think, their colour, and not from
real vice or virtue; if he had considered his wit not as principal
but accessary only; as the instrument of power, and not as
power itself; if he had had much baseness to hide, if he had had less
of what may be called mellowness or good humour, or less of
health and spirit; if he had spurred and rode the world with his wit,
instead of suffering the world, boys and all, to ride him;- he might,
without any other essential change, have been the admiration and
not the jest of mankind:-

Or if he had lived in our day, and instead
of attaching himself to one Prince, had renounced all friendship
and all attachment, and had let himself out as the ready
instrument and Zany of every successive Minister, he might
possibly have acquired the high honour of marking his shroud or
decorating his coffin with the living rays of an Irish at least, if not a
British Coronet: Instead of which, tho' enforcing laughter from
every disposition, he appears, now, as such a character, which
every wise man will pity and avoid, every knave will censure, and
every fool will fear: And accordingly Shakespeare, ever true to
nature, has made Harry desert, and Lancaster censure him:
He dies where he lived, in a Tavern, broken-hearted, without a
friend; and his final exit is given up to the derision of fools.

Category:

Education

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• Shakespeare
• King-Henry-IV
• 1H4
• Michael-Pennington
• Barry-Stanton
• June-Watson
• play
• theatre

[Foolishnomad]

Where is part 13?