Henry IV, Part One, by William Shakespeare, is part of the Barnes & Noble Shakespeare series. This unique series features newly edited texts prepared by leading scholars from America and Great Britain, in collaboration with one of the world’s foremost Shakespeare authorities, David Scott Kastan of Columbia University. Together they have produced texts as faithful as possible to those that Shakespeare wrote.
Each volume in the Barnes & Noble Shakespeare includes:
The story of Prince Hal's unorthodox preparation for kingship, Henry IV, Part One features one of the most famous comic characters in all of literature-Sir John Falstaff. The editor, Matthew Dimmock, offers a concise picture of the actual historical events dramatized in the play, revealing what Shakespeare changed and why.
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, and his birth is traditionally celebrated on April 23. The facts of his life, known from surviving documents, are sparse. He was one of eight children born to John Shakespeare, a merchant of some standing in his community. William probably went to the King's New School in Stratford, but he had no university education. In November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, eight years his senior, who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. She was born on May 26, 1583. Twins, a boy, Hamnet ( who would die at age eleven), and a girl, Judith, were born in 1585. By 1592 Shakespeare had gone to London working as an actor and already known as a playwright. A rival dramatist, Robert Greene, referred to him as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers." Shakespeare became a principal shareholder and playwright of the successful acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later under James I, called the King's Men). In 1599 the Lord Chamberlain's Men built and occupied the Globe Theater in Southwark near the Thames River. Here many of Shakespeare's plays were performed by the most famous actors of his time, including Richard Burbage, Will Kempe, and Robert Armin. In addition to his 37 plays, Shakespeare had a hand in others, including Sir Thomas More and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and he wrote poems, including Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. His 154 sonnets were published, probably without his authorization, in 1609. In 1611 or 1612 he gave up his lodgings in London and devoted more and more time to retirement in Stratford, though he continued writing such plays as The Tempest and Henry VII until about 1613. He died on April 23 1616, and was buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford. No collected edition of his plays was published during his life-time, but in 1623 two members of his acting company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, put together the great collection now called the First Folio.
These ArkAngel Audio CDs really convey the vibrance of Shakespeare's world complete with bawdy screams, clinking glasses in taverns, birds chirping in the forest, etc. It's "Shakespeare for people who hate Shakespeare" in the sense that when you listen to these CDs the meanings of lines and the essence of the play comes across easily by virtue of the inflections in the voices and the circumstances.
Shakespeare is so often mistaught in schools, "overcooked," as it were, in that the endless stream of complexities in individual lines are overanalyzed to death before anyone has developed an overall sense of what's going on in the play. These CDs will give you that sense and much more. The guy who plays Falstaff had me laughing out loud. Also, using a CD like this is not "cheating" -- just the opposite, it is the *right* way to approach Shakespeare because these are plays! They are meant, first and foremost, to be performed, not read. For students I would recommend listening *first* to get an overall sense, then going back and reading, then listening again. Reading will be much more productive and fun, I imagine.
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In this Arkangel procuction of 'Henry IV Part One', Richard Griffiths makes a pretty good Falstaff (sounding a bit like Leo McKern), though a bit too placid-drunk, not quite enough fire in his vast belly. Hal, played by Jamie Glover (the real life son to his father in the play, Henry IV as played by Julian Glover), initially comes across as foppish, but in the early scene where he compares himself to the sun allowing himself to be covered by clouds, reveals he can handle the complexity of the character. Hal, indeed, is one of the strangest creations in literature - a coal-biter (a ne'er-do-well who later makes good), but a DELIBERATE one. He knows from the outset what he is doing.
Alan Cox is an excellent Hotspur, full of aggressive vitality. I doubt I could ever listen to another production of this play without mentally hearing Hotspur's lines the way Cox delivers them. His "O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth" is especially poignant. The argument between Hotspur and the Welsh warrior-poet Owen Glendower ("I say the earth did shake when I was born") is one of Shakespeare's most brilliant passages, and here it is handled well. The too-impatient Hotspur can't abide exaggeration of any kind - "mincing poetry", he calls it. The Welsh song sung by Glendower's daughter is completely enchanting - and as I may have mentioned in other Arkangel reviews, the music is one of the best reasons to hear these productions. As with Arkangel's 'Richard II', 'Henry IV Part One' has an excellent score.
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