As I’ve mentioned before, the manuscript for Richard II: Thomas of Woodstock has seen better days. Torn pages and missing words are damaging enough, but perhaps the most devastating loss to the play is its finale: At least one full leaf is missing at the end of the play, taking with it at least 120 lines (based on the number of lines per leaf in the rest of the manuscript). It’s unlikely that we are missing more than one or two leaves, as the play is already rather long at 2,989 lines and is clearly heading towards a conclusion.

The ending of a play, of course, contains the culmination of its plot, theme, and characters. Therefore, in order to discuss or analyze Richard II: Thomas of Woodstock, one must hypothesize the nature of its ending. (If Godot shows up, Waiting for Godot looks like a very different play.) And if one is going to perform it, of course, a conclusion of some sort must be written.

It is perhaps unsurprising to discover that the hypothetical ending of the play has become a crucible for the authorship debate: Write the ending one way, and it strengthens the play’s ties to Shakespeare’s Richard II. Write it a different way and the plays become completely incompatible.

CONCLUDING THE PLOT

Much like the authorship debate itself, there are basically two possibilities for the ending of Richard II: Thomas of Woodstock:

First, the play could be viewed as a complete conflation of Richard’s reign: The cronies of Richard’s final crisis (Bushy, Bagot, Scroop, and Green) are transplanted into Richard’s first crisis (which historically featured an entirely different set of nobles). Gloucester’s death, which in real life took place between the two crises, is dramatically shifted to the culmination of the first. But instead of being resolved in a series of primarily political maneuvers, this crisis is instead resolved on the field of battle in the fashion of the second crisis.

Theoretically one could argue that this is not a prequel to Shakespeare’s Richard II, but rather supercedes it entirely: All one needs to do is provide an ending in which Richard abdicates his throne in order to complete the play’s masterful blending of every crisis in Richard’s reign into a single, unified narrative.

This theory runs into a rather significant stumbling block, however, when one notices that Henry Bolingbroke — Richard’s replacement and the future Henry IV — is conspicuously missing from the play. While it’s impossible to completely rule out a last minute revelation of the heir apparent (akin to Henry VII in Richard III or Fortinbras in Hamlet), it’s rather difficult to imagine how the play would simultaneously remove Bolingbroke’s father (the Duke of Lancaster), who has also been left rather inconveniently alive.

Thus we are forced to turn to the second possibility, in which Richard’s first deposition is carried out: Stripped of his friends and with their tyrannies revoked, Richard is allowed to keep his throne. Much like the historical record, there is a return to a sort of status quo, allowing for a relatively seamless continuity with the beginning of Richard II.

In addition to Richard’s fate, there’s the question of how the issue of Woodstock’s murder was to be resolved. It has been hypothesized that Lapoole’s entrance as a prisoner at the top of the scene must presage an ultimate revelation of Woodstock’s fate, but this isn’t necessarily true: Lapoole may merely be rounding out the crowd of Richard’s cronies who have been captured during the battle (and destined to be sentenced during the course of the scene). If the play is connected to Richard II, it’s notable that while Gloucester’s death is known at the beginning of that play, even Lancaster and York are left to speculate on the king’s guilt in the matter.

CONCLUDING THE CHARACTERS

Tying off the loose ends of the plot in R2: Woodstock is largely a matter of shuffling historical necessity and guessing which bits the author intended to include. More difficult to guess are the particular conclusions of each character’s arc, since each character — although largely drawn from the historical record — is nevertheless the unique creation of the author’s genius.

Of course, not every character in a drama is necessarily worthy of equal attention. Therefore, one needs to choose which characters are to be given the spotlight’s focus. In the case of R2: Woodstock, my best guess is that this focus belongs to Nimble and Tresilian (who have been the focus of the play’s B-plot), Richard (by necessity of his deposition if nothing else), and the king’s surviving uncles (partly as a continuation of Woodstock’s important legacy within he play).

As for Nimble and Tresilian, the thrust of their arc has already been initiated in Act 5, Scene 5, and is being drawn to a close when the script abruptly cuts off. It’s not difficult, therefore, to round off an ending in which the servant becomes the master (completing a cycle of class inversion found throughout the play) and Tresilian is brought to justice for his tricks in the culmination of a final trick played by Nimble.

Next we turn to Richard, who is most likely brought onstage as a captive by the Duke of York (who is conspicuously absent at the beginning of the final scene). Is he to be humbled like Tresilian? Perhaps. But if Richard is to end with his crown intact, it may make more sense to draw a contrast between his fate and that of his false judge. Let us instead suppose a Richard who, out of his need to find some strength to rely on, turns to the surety of his divine right to the throne: This harrowing experience can actually serve to strengthen and purify that belief, already found as a subtext throughout R2: Woodstock, into the central tenet of his existence (and thus setting the stage for Richard II).

Finally we come to the dukes of York and Lancaster. Throughout the play they have largely acted in concert as “headstrong uncles to the gentle king” (as Greene describes them in 1.2), but there have also been subtle divisions drawn between their characters: The “relenting Duke of York” (2.1) being contrasted against a Lancaster who is frequently “past all patience” (1.1).

Let’s suppose that in this final scene this division between brothers is brought into the open, perhaps driven by their different responses to Woodstock’s death. Lancaster, who had already sworn to “call King Richard to a strict account” (5.3) can follow their initial inclination to its extreme and depose Richard. York, on the other hand, can learn from Woodstock’s counsel and follow his example of temperance and patience, thus turning Woodstock’s death into a final sacrifice in accordance with Woodstock’s final prayer.

(And this, too, transitions the characters naturally to the beginning of Richard II.)

CONCLUDING THE THEMES

Even moreso than with plot or character, attempting to provide a thematic conclusion for the play bears the risk of stamping it with one’s own interpretation of the drama. Thus I have chosen to walk carefully, preferring to include thematic elements without necessarily seeking to summarize or pass judgment on them.

Occasionally, however, boldness is called for. In particular, I have chosen to take up key themes of Richard II. Many of these themes have already been highlighted in Richard II: Thomas of Woodstock, but others which have not previously been present in the play are established as the transformation of one theme into another.

Thus, for example, a king who has been vain turns reflective. And whereas in the aftermath of Anne a Beame’s death Richard says of himself, “My wounds are inward, inward burn my woe.” In the face of fresher losses, we find that his woe has consumed entirely, transforming him into a hollow king.

Have I overstepped scholastic certainty? Of course. But the ending of a play should never be completely predictable. So if we limit ourselves to providing an ending which does nothing that is not already contained in the play as it exists, we would confine ourselves to an artistically and dramatically unfulfilling conclusion. In seeking to push the boundaries of the play beyond the known limitation of its final, broken page, aiming towards Richard II as lodestar provides at least some guidance where we might otherwise find ourselves stumbling blindly in the dark.

THE SCRIPT ADDENDUM

The ASR scripts of the play have been updated to include the ending as it was performed during the Complete Readings of William Shakespeare. If you’re interested in reading the new ending by itself, a separate PDF link has been included below.

Permission to use this additional material in print or production is freely granted as long as the following notice is included on either (a) the title page or cover of the printed publication or (b) the cover of the production’s program, website, and any posters, postcards, or similar advertising:

New Ending Written by Justin Alexander
https://www.thealexandrian.net

Originally Produced by the
American Shakespeare Repertory
http://www.american-shakespeare.com

RICHARD II: THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK – THE NEW ENDING

RICHARD II: THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK – FULL SCRIPT

RICHARD II: THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK – CONFLATED SCRIPT

Originally posted on September 19th, 2010.

Richard II: Thomas of Woodstock only survives in a well-thumbed manuscript. Literally well-thumbed: The edges of its pages, worn thin by apparently decades of use as a playhouse prompt script, are disintegrating.

But that’s not all: The manuscript’s cover sheet has been lost, taking with it the original name of the play and the author’s name. The last few pages are also missing, taking with them the end of the play.

Despite being battered and beaten, the play has survived. And it brings with it a host of mysteries and enigmas.

First, and perhaps foremost, is the play’s anonymity. Take any half-decent, anonymous play from Elizabethan England and it won’t be long before the question, “Who wrote this?” starts attracting answers of, “William Shakespeare”.

Richard II: Thomas of Woodstock, on the other hand, is a very good play from Elizabethan England, so it shouldn’t be too surprising to discover that the name “William Shakespeare” has been periodically dogging its heels for at least the last couple of centuries. But the heat really cranked up in 2005 when Michael Egan picked up the torch. Egan didn’t just content himself with writing a mammoth tome making his case that Shakespeare was the author of “Richard II, Part 1” (as he called it): He wrote four. And then he followed it up with a blitzkrieg of publicity.

Which, to make a long story short, is how the play finds its way into the apocryphal cycle of the Complete Readings of William Shakespeare. And thus poses its own problems for me to solve.

THE TITLE

First, let’s talk about the title. Egan makes the compelling case that the identity of the play itself serves a proxy fight for the authorship debate: The earliest critics of the play referred to it as simply Richard II (because it was fairly standard practice for Elizabethan history plays to be named after their reigning monarch). But this created obvious confusion between this play and the better known play of the same title by Shakespeare.

At this point, the play’s identity splits: Those who believe that the play is written by Shakespeare (along with a few who don’t) start referring to it as Richard II, Part 1. But those who don’t ascribe to Shakespeare’s authorship (and want to distance the play as much as possible from Shakespeare’s work), strip Richard’s name off the play entirely and refer to it as either Thomas of Woodstock (or simply Woodstock).

On the gripping hand, I find either approach to be fraught with problems. On the one hand, titling the play Richard II, Part 1 is deliberately provocative. It thrusts the authorship question front-and-center while simultaneously demanding an opinion before one has even had a chance to experience the play (let alone the evidence). It’s presumptuous in its assumption.

On the other hand, titling the play Thomas of Woodstock is to promote the character of Woodstock to the role of sole protagonist in a way that I, personally, feel significantly distorts the narrative of the play.

So I split the difference: As a title, Richard II: Thomas of Woodstock is (a) clear; (b) assumes nothing; and (c) distinguishes it from the other, more famous, Richard II.

DEBT TO FRIJLINCK

In an age of pervasive googling, I was actually surprised to discover that a photographic facsimile of Richard II: Thomas of Woodstock wasn’t available online. Of course, even if it were, it wouldn’t do me much good: While I’ve become intimately familiar with the idiosyncrasies of Elizabethan printing, I’m afraid Elizabethan handwriting is a skill I’m far from mastering.

That’s why our script owes a great debt to Wilhelmina Frijlinck. Frijlinck prepared the 1929 Malone Society Reprint edition of the play (published as The First Part of the Reign of King Richard the Second, or Thomas of Woodstock). This edition faithfully reproduced in modern type and layout everything which could be found on the page of the original manuscript.

While in some ways it can be frustrating to be dependent on Frijlinck’s observations instead of being able to study the primary text directly, there’s no question that Frijlinck’s edition is almost as good as the real thing.

THE TEXT

It’s particularly exciting to be able to offer this version of the script to the public because no other decent edition of the play has been made available on the internet.

To date, the only version of the script we’ve been able to find online was the text provided by the Hampshire Shakespeare Company. Unfortunately, this text proved to be so utterly corrupt and purposefully inaccurate that it was completely worthless even as a base text which could be corrected. Its most heinous flaw lies in the decision to expand every contraction (so that “it’s” in the original text, for example, becomes “it is” in the Hampshire edition), thus completely destroying the verse structure of the play. This by itself would utterly discredit the script, but it’s helped along by an essentially schizophrenic approach to punctuation: In some cases spraying excess punctuation in order to further damage the flow and sense of the text, while in other cases failing to provide (or even removing) necessary punctuation required for the text to make any sense.

I think you’ll find that our own script is far from perfect, but it does bear the honor of making an undamaged version of the play publicly available online for the first time.

RICHARD II: THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK – FULL SCRIPT

RICHARD II: THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK – CONFLATED SCRIPT

1. All emendations have been indicated to with [square brackets].
2. Scribal deletions struck thru.
3. Scribal deletions retained in <diamond brackets>.
4. Non-scribal additions underlined.
5. Non-scribal addition not retained underlined and struck thru.
6. Speech headings have been silently regularlized.
7. Names which appear in ALL CAPITALS in stage directions have also been regularized.
8. Spelling has been modernized.
9. Punctuation has been silently emended. (Although only in a minimalist fashion, as described above.)
10. A new ending has been added to the play, written by Justin Alexander. See Richard II: Thomas of Woodstock – The End of the Story.

THE NEW ENDING

Because the play is incomplete, a new ending was written for the Complete Readings of William Shakespeare. The ASR scripts of the play have been updated to include the ending as it was performed. For more details on the ending, check out Richard II: Thomas of Woodstock – The End of the Story. If you’re interested in reading the new ending by itself, a separate PDF link has been included below.

Permission to use this additional material in print or production is freely granted as long as the following notice is included on either (a) the title page or cover of the printed publication or (b) the cover of the production’s program, website, and any posters, postcards, or similar advertising:

New Ending Written by Justin Alexander
https://www.thealexandrian.net

Originally Produced by the
American Shakespeare Repertory
http://www.american-shakespeare.com

RICHARD II: THOMAS OF WOODSTOCK – THE NEW ENDING

Originally posted September 10th, 2014.

As I mentioned last week, the script is the foundation of our work at the American Shakespeare Repertory. In preparing our scripts, we try to find the right balance between preserving the clues of performance and meaning preserved in the original texts, while still benefiting from the insights gleaned from 400 years of scholastic study. We’re also looking to create a document which is easy to use in both rehearsal and performance.

The script of our first production, Macbeth, is fairly representative of the process.

THE BASE TEXT

I start by pulling a base text, which is usually taken from the Moby Shakespeare public domain ASCII text versions hosted by James Matthew Farrow. My primary reason for using a base text is to avoid needing to re-type the entire script (which I know, from previous experience, would greatly increase the likelihood of error). I treat the base text as if it were a faulty document in need of proof-reading, and the master copy I’m comparing it to is the original versions of the play published during Shakespeare’s lifetime or in the First Folio of 1623.

In the case of Macbeth, that means the version of the play printed in the First Folio. (If the First Folio had never been published, Macbeth, like hundreds of other Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, would have likely been lost to the world.) In order to access that text, I refer to both the printed facsimile edition that I own, or to one of several photo facsimiles available online. (Like the one hosted as part of the Furness Collection by the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image, which you can view here.)

PRINCIPLE OF MINIMAL EMENDATION

My goal, however, is not to produce an exact duplicate of the First Folio in modern text. (If I needed that, I could simply buy the The Applause First Folio of Shakespeare in Modern Type.) While I find it fascinating to study the original documents on which our knowledge of Shakespeare is based, that study also makes me aware of how imperfect those documents are. They are documents in need of repair, and for 400 years brilliant, talented, and insightful people have been working to make them better.

In order to tap into that accumulation of knowledge, I reference a lot of different sources: The Variorum editions of many plays (including the Variorum edition of Macbeth, which can be viewed online) provide an invaluable insight into early scholastic traditions, while a collection of more modern editions (such as the Arden, Folger, and Oxford editions) with a variety of supplementary reading provide the rest.

But while I want to take advantage of this accumulation of knowledge, I’ve also found that most modern texts can suffer from that accumulation of knowledge: In some cases, editorial errors have become scholastic traditions. And many of the things done to make the texts “accessible” actually obscure Shakespeare’s original intentions.

So in working from my base text for Macbeth, I am “reverting” it to the original text of First Folio while applying what I refer to as the Principle of Minimal Emendation: I will only alter the text when the text doesn’t make sense as it stands.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this principle applies to punctuation: While many editors are careful to wield nothing more than a scalpel when considering which words to change in the text, virtually all modern editions have punctuation which bears only the slightest resemblance to those found in the original texts. And while we certainly have plenty of evidence that the type-setters responsible for creating those texts may have also played fast-and-loose with Shakespeare’s punctuation (at best), it’s also true that a shift in punctuation can also create large shifts in meaning.

CONFLATION

Once I’ve fully prepared a complete version of the script, I still need to prepare a conflated version of the script for our production.

Shakespeare’s plays include dozens of characters. (Macbeth, for example, includes thirty-nine different characters.) While it’s certainly possible to cast a different actor for every role, this is rarely done. It wasn’t even typical in Shakespeare’s own theater. (Our own reading of Macbeth featured only 16 actors.)

Instead, modern productions will reduce the number of actors required through three techniques:

Doubling, in which a single actor portrays multiple roles throughout the play.

Conflation, in which the lines for one character are given to a different character (in order to eliminate a role from the play).

Cutting, in which entire roles are simply removed from the play.

Our conflated scripts feature a combination of all three techniques, although we rarely resort to outright cutting (since our desire is to fully explore the texts).

THE TEXT

We’ll be providing digital copies of all our scripts, starting with Macbeth, in both conflated and unconflated forms:

MACBETH – FULL SCRIPT

MACBETH – CONFLATED SCRIPT

It’s certainly easy enough to find Shakespeare plays online, but while these editions aren’t proper scholastic editions (they’re quick, dirty and effective instead of being fully reviewed), we believe that our scripts are particularly valuable for those looking to stage the plays. (Our script for Romeo & Juliet, for example, has already served as the basis for four full-scale local productions.) In particular, we find these scripts valuable because they indicate how they’ve been altered from the original texts.

In the case of Macbeth, please note that:

1. All emendations have been indicated to with [square brackets].

2. Speech headings have been silently regularlized.

3. Names which appear in ALL CAPITALS in stage directions have also been regularized.

4. Spelling has been modernized.

5. Punctuation has been silently emended. (Although only in a minimalist fashion, as described above.)

(Intriguingly, even these minimal procedures can still have a significant impact on meaning. For example, the character that we casually think of as “Lady Macbeth” virtually never appears as such in the text itself. She is almost always referred to as “Lady” or “Wife”. The subjection of personal identity into societal role can have a profound impact on how we interpret her actions and her motivations.)

Originally posted September 9th, 2010.

The Complete Readings of William Shakespeare project is about more than just grabbing a Shakespeare script and jumping in front of an audience. Our advertising slug will tell you that the series presents a unique opportunity to experience these plays in a way that hasn’t been possible since the King’s Men originally performed them 400 years ago. But there’s more to that than just a novelty: We think there’s something exciting, for example, about seeing the cycle of history plays literally unroll before your eyes with a continuity of character and actor.

As a member of our audience, you’re getting a chance to discover things that can only be seen when Shakespeare’s plays are viewed a living body of theatrical work. And part of what we hope will make that experience memorable are the discoveries we’re making as performers. The American Shakespeare Repertory wants to delve deep into the rich depths of Shakespeare’s plays, and we believe that the Complete Readings will prove to be a powerful foundation on which the future work of the company will be built.

That work begins with the script.

BRIEF HISTORY OF SHAKESPEARE’S TEXTS

As many of you probably already know, we have inherited our Shakespeare scripts from an eclectic variety of sources. No manuscript copy of a complete Shakespeare play exists. Instead, the earliest version of Shakespeare’s plays we possess are quartos which were printed in the 1590’s. (Quartos were roughly the cultural equivalent of modern paperbacks.) These were sold by at least half a dozen different publishers, many of whom apparently didn’t possess any sort of authoritative (or even complete) copy of the plays they were publishing. The next milestone in Shakespeare publication was the famous First Folio of 1623, without which many of his plays would have been permanently lost. (Folios were much larger volumes.)

These various editions were reprinted and reissued in a variety of ways over the next hundred years, with each subsequent printing accumulating a fresh set of errors and variants. The modern editorial tradition began in the 18th century, as editors attempted to return to the earliest versions of each text in an effort to produce a more authoritative edition. Modern editions of Shakespeare generally follow the same basic practices established in the 18th century:

1. Modernization of Spelling

2. Regularization of Punctuation and Verse

3. Emendation of Text

Because every editor makes different choices (particularly when it comes to texts which exist in more than one original edition), every edition of a Shakespeare play is slightly different from every other edition of the same play. But over the past couple hundred years, each play has generally (and slowly) accumulated traditions of emendation.

THE COMPLETE READING SCRIPTS

This accumulation of emendation is generally a good thing: When one editor finds a particularly apt solution to a textual problem, other editors copy their work and then try to find other ways to repair the text of the play.

But sometimes the best choice (or the seemingly best choice) eliminates other choices that might also bear fruit if fully pursued. An actor or director, in particular, will scour a play’s script looking for the clues buried within it. And sometimes modern editorial practices can resemble a criminal wiping away the fingerprints at a crime scene: Important information can be lost.

Which is why every Complete Reading is based on a freshly prepared script specifically designed to preserve as many of those clues as possible (while also conveying all the benefits of a fully modern edition).

The script used for our first reading, Macbeth, which I’ll be sharing next week, is fairly representative of the process.

Originally posted September 8th, 2010.