I know what my theatre buddies are likely to be thinking, but no, this review is not about "the Scottish play". That play is being staged at Stratford this summer. Stand by for my review in just over a week!
No, this was something much, much bigger. Two days ago, I passed a quiet, peaceful Sunday immersed in family feuds, bloodshed, palpable fear and internecine strife. Welcome to the dark and dangerous world of The James Plays, by Scottish playwright Rona Munro. Commissioned for the National Theatre of Scotland, first staged in 2014, this epic trilogy has been restaged this year -- and the company, after an extensive tour of the British Isles, has brought the entire production to Toronto.
Here, the plays are being presented as part of the annual Luminato Festival in a most uncommon environment -- a 1,000-seat temporary theatre constructed inside the normally-vacant hulk of the Richard Hearn Generating Station on the waterfront.
It's an inspired choice of venue. For these three dark and dangerous plays which reach backwards into the bloodshed of the Middle Ages, a glossy and luxurious modern theatre wouldn't work nearly as well. By the time you've walked through the dim, gigantic, foreboding, chilly atmosphere of the Hearn for five minutes to finally reach the theatre, you feel almost as if you're in a Scottish castle yourself. Yes, chilly -- even on a day when outside temperatures soared past the 30-degree mark, I was grateful to be wearing long trousers and many audience members had sweaters on.
Munro's trilogy of plays can be seen as a unit all in one day -- as I did, and as they will be seen again this coming weekend. But it's not really necessary to do so. Each of the three is a separate, independent piece, and each one has its own distinct atmosphere.
Munro's style of language is Scottish, but contemporary. There's no attempt at the use of an elevated, Goode Olde Daze style of language, except for the use of historic formulas in a couple of formal moments. F-bombs abound as tempers rage. For all that modernity, the tone is unmistakably epic, as is the sweep of the action. In each of the three plays, depicting three successive generations of the Stewart family of monarchs, nothing less than the throne and power of Scotland is at stake.
Munro has also indicated in her programme notes the use of time compression, as well as the conflation of multiple historic personages into a smaller number of onstage characters. Also significant is the fact that none of these plays covers the entire reign of the titular king. Each one is focused on a particular time period which yields maximum dramatic impact. This was all scarcely surprising to me, as a historian, since virtually all "historic" novels, plays, and films use the same tactics -- and that includes the history plays of Shakespeare. For the rest of the audience, it does serve as a useful reminder that this is not just a live history lesson but drama, first and foremost.
Munro has also indicated in her programme notes the use of time compression, as well as the conflation of multiple historic personages into a smaller number of onstage characters. Also significant is the fact that none of these plays covers the entire reign of the titular king. Each one is focused on a particular time period which yields maximum dramatic impact. This was all scarcely surprising to me, as a historian, since virtually all "historic" novels, plays, and films use the same tactics -- and that includes the history plays of Shakespeare. For the rest of the audience, it does serve as a useful reminder that this is not just a live history lesson but drama, first and foremost.
The three productions all present the same company of twenty actors, most of whom are on stage in all three plays, with leading roles in one play taking smaller parts in the others. This has the curious and indeed subversive effect of undercutting your expectations when an actor who played a helpful ally in one play becomes a vicious enemy in the next. Conversely, the same character can appear at two quite different stages of life portrayed by two different actors -- or even portrayed very differently by the same actor. The audience are given a programme sheet with a casting grid which is helpful in keeping track of who played whom and when. (cf. "Who's on first?")
The three plays make use of a single unit set. The stage is a semi-circular arena, edged by walls which slope slightly away from the playing area. Above the walls are several rows of bleacher seating, left and right of centre. It's those walls and bleachers which make the description of "arena" especially appropriate. The audience members sitting on those stage bleachers have to be prepared to keep bags, coats, and feet out of the way of the highly mobile actors who make great use of that space. Above the bleachers, a square platform at centre stage serves occasionally as a balcony or as a prison, but also and more often as a throne room. In that capacity, the throne can be approached by means of a long staircase wheeled out of the large double doorway below the platform. Other set pieces can be moved in or out via that door or either of the two lower side doorways. Actors can enter and exit by steps from the main audience level as well. There is one fixed piece, a gigantic sword, six or seven metres tall, plunged into the floor at an angle slightly off vertical with about 1/4 of its blade buried.
Well, that covers the common aspects of the trilogy. Now for some detailed comments about the three individual plays.
James I: The Key Will Keep The Lock
This first play has an overall story arc very similar to that of Shakespeare's Henry V: the process by which a young man becomes in every way a king. Not least of the similarities is the fact that in each play the king must, for the safety of his realm, commit unspeakable and unethical acts.
So it's an intriguing connection that James I spent 18 years in imprisonment in England, courtesy of none other than Henry V. And Henry thus becomes one of the characters appearing in the very first scene, setting out his scheme to marry James to an English lady and then send him back to Scotland as a kind of puppet king. The action explodes all over the stage when James (Steven Miller) refuses the plan, and attacks Henry. Henry (Matthew Pidgeon) wrestles him into submission, an event which then goes on to shape James' life. Henry is near death when this happens.
As soon as James arrives in Scotland, he has to confront the noble families who have been running the country according to their own lights. A key figure here is his cousin, Murdac Stewart, the Regent. John Stahl portrayed this nobleman as a figure of gruff common sense, in striking contrast to the loud, offensive, boorish, and threatening behaviour of his three sons.
Murdac's polar opposite is his wife, Isabella (Blythe Duff), a smiling, treacherous serpent of a woman. The scene where she threatens James' young English wife, Joan (Rosemary Boyle) is a skillful piece of writing in which treason and affection can be heard as two sides of every word.
Another significant figure is Balvenie of the Douglas family. He's the only nobleman who makes no secret of his desire to have more land and therefore more wealth and power, or of his hope that James will help him achieve what he wants. Peter Forbes very clearly portrayed the mixture of hesitation and urgency with which this relatively small-time operator tries to break into the big leagues of landholding.
Pulled this way and that by the conflicting currents of the rival nobles, James is at first hesitant but begins to grow in authority as he seeks to enforce the laws of the land (Miller handles this transition very effectively).
There is great contrast of tone and manner in his private scenes with Joan. Here again the parallel is with Henry V -- the script depicting the awkwardness that must inevitably ensue as the result of an arranged political marriage. Boyle is first-rate in suddenly going off like a verbal rocket whenever she has a chance to discuss household and farming issues, and then clamming right up again when James changes the topic. Miller's earnestness contrasts strongly with her awkwardness and shyness. Her rapid-fire orders to a servant in her first scene make for one of the few comic moments in an otherwise serious play.
More comedy comes from the arrival of Meg, a Scottish woman sent to Joan to be her lady in waiting. Meg, portrayed by Sally Reid, is as down-to-earth as they come, and shares a lot of wit and good plain common sense with Joan.
James strikes a bargain, sealed with an oath, to take no lands from Murdac while, in return, Murdac urges James to arrest his unruly sons. This is done. But one of Murdac's sons evades capture. In the end, as rebellion grows, James finds he has no choice but to execute the sons, and their father too, while Isabella is to be imprisoned for life. The scene where James confronts his erstwhile ally with this decision is laden with intensity from both Miller and Stahl -- the tables turned, the king fully in command, the commanding noble reduced to pleading.
The climax of the play comes when James battles one-to-one against Big James Stewart (Ali Craig), Murdac's surviving son. In a stunning dramatic effect, the lighting slides into a dreamlike blue and Big James is "replaced" by the ghostly presence of Henry V. This time, King James successfully kills Henry, and -- as we now understand -- finally kills the memory which has acted for years as a dragging anchor on him. It's a powerful point of resolution to bring the play to its end.
James II: The Day Of The Innocents
Time has leapt ahead many years. In the interim, the reign of James I ended in regicide, but Joan -- although wounded -- escaped to safety with her son, James (Andrew Rothney), who is a child of six years old. In the first scene, we see James befriended by the young William Douglas (Andrew Still), son of Balvenie of Douglas. Both these full-grown actors successfully achieved the tricky feat of convincing us that they were actually young boys.
The first part of this play depicts a deadly, fearful Scotland. The child James is plainly the puppet of the out-of-control nobles, and in particular of the fierce and dangerous Earl Livingston (John Stahl), his guardian or jailer, take your pick. James suffers from frequent nightmares about the murder of his father and the subsequent pursuit of his mother and himself. Whenever this happens, he climbs into his wooden chest and pulls shut the lid. But he also has occasional violent fits of bad temper.
There's a ritual repeated several times in this act, a total mockery of due process of law. Livingston, Balvenie (Peter Forbes), and other nobles group around the boy king, who sits huddled up on top of his chest with his hands around his knees. Livingston makes some cryptic pronouncement about the matters up for discussion having all been approved, and then shouts threateningly at James, "You know what to say!" James manages to gasp out the words, "As I will it, so let it be done." The nobles then utter three times the phrase, "In the name of the King."
Rona Munro has adopted a curious procedure for this script, beginning the play with one of those nightmares, then circling back to the moment when Joan reaches safety with her son hidden in a wooden chest, only to lose him to Earl Livingston. James then meets William Douglas, and eventually the action moves forward again to the opening nightmare scene, which is repeated. It's natural to wonder if everything we've seen so far is a kind of Groundhog Day nightmare, endlessly replaying in the boy King's mind. But now the action continues to move forward.
Another key encounter comes when James finds himself in the room, apparently in a tower, where Isabella Stewart (Blythe Duff) was imprisoned by his father. Her half-mad, half prophetic tone and manner in this play is a huge contrast to her manipulative personality in James I, and the closest the cycle ever gets to incorporating a witch figure.
The danger always hovering over the life of James is mirrored by the attitude of Balvenie towards his son. In part as a result of the events in the previous play, Balvenie now has become much more powerful, owning lands in all parts of Scotland, and with it much more power-hungry (large-scale contrast from Forbes as compared to his depiction of the same man in James I). William as a boy is a bit of an impulsive loose cannon, and his father readily loses his temper and kicks him around in a thoroughly abusive way.
The friendship between James and William continues to grow and change by subtle degrees as the boys grow towards manhood. This continual and subtle evolution of character is the great challenge of this play, a challenge both actors meet with success. The one spot where I felt it didn't quite work for me was at the beginning of Act 2 where James had plainly matured, while William still sounded at first just the same young boy as before. As the second act progressed, there developed an undercurrent of homoerotic attraction in the attitude of Douglas towards the King. It was subtle, it was slight, it's not mentioned at all in the text, but Andrew Still managed to incorporate it, by hints and vocal inflections, into his lines -- subtextual acting indeed.
James, now an adult, has married the Flemish princess Mary (played by Rosemary Boyle who also appears as Joan in one early scene). Her accent provides a charming contrast to the Scots voices all around her. It's the one example in the cycle of a cast member appearing as two quite different characters in the same play. There are some lovely scenes of domestic life between the King and his Queen, showing a completely different kind of relationship from the previous royal couple. There's also a nicely-developed friendship between Queen Mary and the King's youngest sister, Annabella (Dani Heron), and between both ladies and Meg (again played by Sally Reid). Although all appears fine on the surface, the King's nightmares still haunt him.
As the play builds towards its climax, there's a powerful last scene between William and his dying father. Balvenie's antagonism towards his son roars out unabated. Forbes reaches the peak of nastiness in his final moments. I suspect I wasn't the only person glad to see him die, just as I wasn't the only one glad to see Earl Livingston get arrested!
There follows in swift succession the scene in which James bestows on William the "honour" of being his Papal Envoy in Rome. William leaves in bitterness. A year later, back again, he's drinking with the King and getting increasingly drunk. Andrew Still handled this scene with great vocal and physical presence, telling James that after what he had seen in Rome he was never going to let anyone order him around again. Their friendship is collapsing in ruins right before our eyes, only William still hasn't got the wit to realize that. James accuses him of treasonous plotting with other nobles. And suddenly, the King's temper erupts and he violently, repeatedly, stabs Douglas -- over and over and over -- while the Queen and Annabella watch in utter horror.
It's the ultimate irony of the play, and of the life of its protagonist. People believed that the prominent port-wine birthmark on James' face was the sign of a hot temper. In the end, James himself has become another Livingston or Balvenie. This one horrific murder, although it allowed him to finally exert royal authority over the nobles, still smirches his reputation right up to the present day.
James III: The True Mirror
Again we leap forward by many years. The childhood of James III was almost a parallel to that of his father, but Munro bypasses any repetition and drops us into his life at a fairly late stage in his reign.
The third play is completely different in tone from its two predecessors, as King James III was totally different from his father and grandfather. This King James is depicted as obsessed with fashion, fun, and luxury, to the detriment of his kingdom (historically, he was most interested in music, riding, and hunting).
So director Laurie Sansom and designer Jon Bausor have chosen to set this play apart from the other two by putting it into modern dress. Also and notably different: the two acts each begin with a party scene, with the company dancing to lively upbeat music from an onstage band. The choreography of the dances is an amusing mix of traditional Scots reels with modern club dance moves.
Once the dance breaks up and the action begins, it's easy to see why James III (Matthew Pidgeon) was an unpopular king. He tricks and jokes with people, spends money like water on his luxuries, refuses to tend to the business of state, demands more taxes, mocks the parliament, and spends time openly with his favourites. Munro pulls no punches here, making it clear that the "favourites" were bed companions. A cute young laundress named Daisy (Fiona Wood) and a handsome manservant named Ramsay (Andrew Fraser) represent all the favourites for the purposes of the drama. Both are playful characters, and Fraser in particular makes use of a fine singing voice in several interludes -- an allusion to the historical James' love of music.
The character of James III, unlike his two predecessors, shows no development at all across the course of the play, and it's here -- I feel -- that Munro has weakened this play in comparison to the other two. To put it bluntly, James III is a whiny, egotistical spoiled brat of a man. It's actually easy to consider him half-mad, both for his turn-on-a-dime rages, and because his makeup highlights Pidgeon's eyes so strongly that they glare at everyone like headlights in dark frames. From first to last he's actively unpleasant -- and tedious too, since he never changes.
The character who does develop, and who truly centres the play is his Queen, Margaret of Denmark (Malin Crepin, in her only appearance in the trilogy). The arc of the storyline is most notable in Margaret's gradual evolution from doing the royal accounts for James, to collecting them directly from John, the Head of the Privy Council (Ali Craig), and beyond -- all this while James pursues his whims and pleasures.
At the same time, Margaret serves to illustrate the unaccountable charismatic pull her husband can exert, as she chooses to live apart from him yet still loves him and can't resist the urge to go to bed with him when the opportunity presents itself. All these diverse, even contradictory, aspects of the woman add up to a truly believable character portrait from Crepin.
Some of the most entertaining moments in this play come from the private scenes between Margaret, the now-much-older Annabella (Blythe Duff) and lady-in-waiting Phemy (Dani Heron), including Duff's hilarious handling of the bath scene.
Another private moment tells us in a nutshell the whole nature of these characters. James presents his wife with a wonderful (and expensive) mirror of great accuracy -- a gift which would indeed be a true rarity in the 1400s! All of them look into the mirror and are startled by their reflections (nice variations on the idea from each of the actors here!). Margaret, Phemy, and Annabella are pleasantly surprised, but James and Daisy both thought they were much better-looking than what they see. The metaphor of the title is now (pardon the pun) crystal clear.
James acts in a very determined way to undermine and alienate everyone: the nobles, the parliament, his eldest son and heir. In a dramatic scene in Act 2, he disinherits his eldest son, Jamie (Daniel Cahill) and bestows favour on his next son, Ross (Andrew Still) who is not yet a man grown. Jamie leaves in disgust, and -- as we find out presently -- colludes with the nobles who oppose his father.
After James mocks the parliament for the last time, Margaret steps forward and, in a passionate speech, persuades the aroused parliamentarians that in spite of her Danish birth, she is the Queen of Scots, has the good and welfare of Scotland in her heart, and has the experience and capability to rule jointly with them. Crepin's performance in this turning-point scene is totally magnificent, one of the great high points of the entire cycle of plays.
The historic James died at the hands of the rebellious nobles, with the connivance of his son who then became King James IV. But Rona Munro's last and greatest dramatic stroke is to have Jamie fight his own father, sword to sword, and kill him in person. Jamie then prepares for his coronation by taking off all his clothes and wrapping himself tightly in a stout chain with pointed links as an act of contrition for parricide, before allowing the motherly Annabella to dress him for the ceremony. As he does this, he quotes an earlier line about the significance of what is worn next to the skin. Because of the sheer concentration and intensity of Cahill's performance in this scene, I doubt that many people in the audience were especially troubled by the full nudity, nor should they have been. (The chain is historically accurate, although the scenario of Jamie directly killing his father is not. He wore the chain every year during Lent for the rest of his life, with added links put in every year.)
In a beautiful final vignette, both poetic and ritualistic in feeling, Annabella tells over Jamie's heritage as she hands him, one by one, jewels and rings that had belonged to all of his ancestors as we have seen them throughout the three plays. Duff's gentle tone in this recital of ancestry made it one of her finest moments of the entire cycle. While she was giving this moving speech, the people she named were gathering on the balcony, looking down at them. At last, the centre doors opened and King James IV walked forward into the blaze of light to his coronation, alone -- yet plainly accompanied in spirit by all his forerunners.
This epic triptych of plays was an incredible dramatic experience on every level I could possibly imagine. The complete cycle will be presented in Toronto two more times, on Saturday and Sunday, June 25 and 26.
The three plays make use of a single unit set. The stage is a semi-circular arena, edged by walls which slope slightly away from the playing area. Above the walls are several rows of bleacher seating, left and right of centre. It's those walls and bleachers which make the description of "arena" especially appropriate. The audience members sitting on those stage bleachers have to be prepared to keep bags, coats, and feet out of the way of the highly mobile actors who make great use of that space. Above the bleachers, a square platform at centre stage serves occasionally as a balcony or as a prison, but also and more often as a throne room. In that capacity, the throne can be approached by means of a long staircase wheeled out of the large double doorway below the platform. Other set pieces can be moved in or out via that door or either of the two lower side doorways. Actors can enter and exit by steps from the main audience level as well. There is one fixed piece, a gigantic sword, six or seven metres tall, plunged into the floor at an angle slightly off vertical with about 1/4 of its blade buried.
Well, that covers the common aspects of the trilogy. Now for some detailed comments about the three individual plays.
James I: The Key Will Keep The Lock
This first play has an overall story arc very similar to that of Shakespeare's Henry V: the process by which a young man becomes in every way a king. Not least of the similarities is the fact that in each play the king must, for the safety of his realm, commit unspeakable and unethical acts.
So it's an intriguing connection that James I spent 18 years in imprisonment in England, courtesy of none other than Henry V. And Henry thus becomes one of the characters appearing in the very first scene, setting out his scheme to marry James to an English lady and then send him back to Scotland as a kind of puppet king. The action explodes all over the stage when James (Steven Miller) refuses the plan, and attacks Henry. Henry (Matthew Pidgeon) wrestles him into submission, an event which then goes on to shape James' life. Henry is near death when this happens.
As soon as James arrives in Scotland, he has to confront the noble families who have been running the country according to their own lights. A key figure here is his cousin, Murdac Stewart, the Regent. John Stahl portrayed this nobleman as a figure of gruff common sense, in striking contrast to the loud, offensive, boorish, and threatening behaviour of his three sons.
Murdac's polar opposite is his wife, Isabella (Blythe Duff), a smiling, treacherous serpent of a woman. The scene where she threatens James' young English wife, Joan (Rosemary Boyle) is a skillful piece of writing in which treason and affection can be heard as two sides of every word.
Another significant figure is Balvenie of the Douglas family. He's the only nobleman who makes no secret of his desire to have more land and therefore more wealth and power, or of his hope that James will help him achieve what he wants. Peter Forbes very clearly portrayed the mixture of hesitation and urgency with which this relatively small-time operator tries to break into the big leagues of landholding.
Pulled this way and that by the conflicting currents of the rival nobles, James is at first hesitant but begins to grow in authority as he seeks to enforce the laws of the land (Miller handles this transition very effectively).
There is great contrast of tone and manner in his private scenes with Joan. Here again the parallel is with Henry V -- the script depicting the awkwardness that must inevitably ensue as the result of an arranged political marriage. Boyle is first-rate in suddenly going off like a verbal rocket whenever she has a chance to discuss household and farming issues, and then clamming right up again when James changes the topic. Miller's earnestness contrasts strongly with her awkwardness and shyness. Her rapid-fire orders to a servant in her first scene make for one of the few comic moments in an otherwise serious play.
More comedy comes from the arrival of Meg, a Scottish woman sent to Joan to be her lady in waiting. Meg, portrayed by Sally Reid, is as down-to-earth as they come, and shares a lot of wit and good plain common sense with Joan.
James strikes a bargain, sealed with an oath, to take no lands from Murdac while, in return, Murdac urges James to arrest his unruly sons. This is done. But one of Murdac's sons evades capture. In the end, as rebellion grows, James finds he has no choice but to execute the sons, and their father too, while Isabella is to be imprisoned for life. The scene where James confronts his erstwhile ally with this decision is laden with intensity from both Miller and Stahl -- the tables turned, the king fully in command, the commanding noble reduced to pleading.
The climax of the play comes when James battles one-to-one against Big James Stewart (Ali Craig), Murdac's surviving son. In a stunning dramatic effect, the lighting slides into a dreamlike blue and Big James is "replaced" by the ghostly presence of Henry V. This time, King James successfully kills Henry, and -- as we now understand -- finally kills the memory which has acted for years as a dragging anchor on him. It's a powerful point of resolution to bring the play to its end.
James II: The Day Of The Innocents
Time has leapt ahead many years. In the interim, the reign of James I ended in regicide, but Joan -- although wounded -- escaped to safety with her son, James (Andrew Rothney), who is a child of six years old. In the first scene, we see James befriended by the young William Douglas (Andrew Still), son of Balvenie of Douglas. Both these full-grown actors successfully achieved the tricky feat of convincing us that they were actually young boys.
The first part of this play depicts a deadly, fearful Scotland. The child James is plainly the puppet of the out-of-control nobles, and in particular of the fierce and dangerous Earl Livingston (John Stahl), his guardian or jailer, take your pick. James suffers from frequent nightmares about the murder of his father and the subsequent pursuit of his mother and himself. Whenever this happens, he climbs into his wooden chest and pulls shut the lid. But he also has occasional violent fits of bad temper.
There's a ritual repeated several times in this act, a total mockery of due process of law. Livingston, Balvenie (Peter Forbes), and other nobles group around the boy king, who sits huddled up on top of his chest with his hands around his knees. Livingston makes some cryptic pronouncement about the matters up for discussion having all been approved, and then shouts threateningly at James, "You know what to say!" James manages to gasp out the words, "As I will it, so let it be done." The nobles then utter three times the phrase, "In the name of the King."
Rona Munro has adopted a curious procedure for this script, beginning the play with one of those nightmares, then circling back to the moment when Joan reaches safety with her son hidden in a wooden chest, only to lose him to Earl Livingston. James then meets William Douglas, and eventually the action moves forward again to the opening nightmare scene, which is repeated. It's natural to wonder if everything we've seen so far is a kind of Groundhog Day nightmare, endlessly replaying in the boy King's mind. But now the action continues to move forward.
Another key encounter comes when James finds himself in the room, apparently in a tower, where Isabella Stewart (Blythe Duff) was imprisoned by his father. Her half-mad, half prophetic tone and manner in this play is a huge contrast to her manipulative personality in James I, and the closest the cycle ever gets to incorporating a witch figure.
The danger always hovering over the life of James is mirrored by the attitude of Balvenie towards his son. In part as a result of the events in the previous play, Balvenie now has become much more powerful, owning lands in all parts of Scotland, and with it much more power-hungry (large-scale contrast from Forbes as compared to his depiction of the same man in James I). William as a boy is a bit of an impulsive loose cannon, and his father readily loses his temper and kicks him around in a thoroughly abusive way.
The friendship between James and William continues to grow and change by subtle degrees as the boys grow towards manhood. This continual and subtle evolution of character is the great challenge of this play, a challenge both actors meet with success. The one spot where I felt it didn't quite work for me was at the beginning of Act 2 where James had plainly matured, while William still sounded at first just the same young boy as before. As the second act progressed, there developed an undercurrent of homoerotic attraction in the attitude of Douglas towards the King. It was subtle, it was slight, it's not mentioned at all in the text, but Andrew Still managed to incorporate it, by hints and vocal inflections, into his lines -- subtextual acting indeed.
James, now an adult, has married the Flemish princess Mary (played by Rosemary Boyle who also appears as Joan in one early scene). Her accent provides a charming contrast to the Scots voices all around her. It's the one example in the cycle of a cast member appearing as two quite different characters in the same play. There are some lovely scenes of domestic life between the King and his Queen, showing a completely different kind of relationship from the previous royal couple. There's also a nicely-developed friendship between Queen Mary and the King's youngest sister, Annabella (Dani Heron), and between both ladies and Meg (again played by Sally Reid). Although all appears fine on the surface, the King's nightmares still haunt him.
As the play builds towards its climax, there's a powerful last scene between William and his dying father. Balvenie's antagonism towards his son roars out unabated. Forbes reaches the peak of nastiness in his final moments. I suspect I wasn't the only person glad to see him die, just as I wasn't the only one glad to see Earl Livingston get arrested!
There follows in swift succession the scene in which James bestows on William the "honour" of being his Papal Envoy in Rome. William leaves in bitterness. A year later, back again, he's drinking with the King and getting increasingly drunk. Andrew Still handled this scene with great vocal and physical presence, telling James that after what he had seen in Rome he was never going to let anyone order him around again. Their friendship is collapsing in ruins right before our eyes, only William still hasn't got the wit to realize that. James accuses him of treasonous plotting with other nobles. And suddenly, the King's temper erupts and he violently, repeatedly, stabs Douglas -- over and over and over -- while the Queen and Annabella watch in utter horror.
It's the ultimate irony of the play, and of the life of its protagonist. People believed that the prominent port-wine birthmark on James' face was the sign of a hot temper. In the end, James himself has become another Livingston or Balvenie. This one horrific murder, although it allowed him to finally exert royal authority over the nobles, still smirches his reputation right up to the present day.
James III: The True Mirror
Again we leap forward by many years. The childhood of James III was almost a parallel to that of his father, but Munro bypasses any repetition and drops us into his life at a fairly late stage in his reign.
The third play is completely different in tone from its two predecessors, as King James III was totally different from his father and grandfather. This King James is depicted as obsessed with fashion, fun, and luxury, to the detriment of his kingdom (historically, he was most interested in music, riding, and hunting).
So director Laurie Sansom and designer Jon Bausor have chosen to set this play apart from the other two by putting it into modern dress. Also and notably different: the two acts each begin with a party scene, with the company dancing to lively upbeat music from an onstage band. The choreography of the dances is an amusing mix of traditional Scots reels with modern club dance moves.
Once the dance breaks up and the action begins, it's easy to see why James III (Matthew Pidgeon) was an unpopular king. He tricks and jokes with people, spends money like water on his luxuries, refuses to tend to the business of state, demands more taxes, mocks the parliament, and spends time openly with his favourites. Munro pulls no punches here, making it clear that the "favourites" were bed companions. A cute young laundress named Daisy (Fiona Wood) and a handsome manservant named Ramsay (Andrew Fraser) represent all the favourites for the purposes of the drama. Both are playful characters, and Fraser in particular makes use of a fine singing voice in several interludes -- an allusion to the historical James' love of music.
The character of James III, unlike his two predecessors, shows no development at all across the course of the play, and it's here -- I feel -- that Munro has weakened this play in comparison to the other two. To put it bluntly, James III is a whiny, egotistical spoiled brat of a man. It's actually easy to consider him half-mad, both for his turn-on-a-dime rages, and because his makeup highlights Pidgeon's eyes so strongly that they glare at everyone like headlights in dark frames. From first to last he's actively unpleasant -- and tedious too, since he never changes.
The character who does develop, and who truly centres the play is his Queen, Margaret of Denmark (Malin Crepin, in her only appearance in the trilogy). The arc of the storyline is most notable in Margaret's gradual evolution from doing the royal accounts for James, to collecting them directly from John, the Head of the Privy Council (Ali Craig), and beyond -- all this while James pursues his whims and pleasures.
At the same time, Margaret serves to illustrate the unaccountable charismatic pull her husband can exert, as she chooses to live apart from him yet still loves him and can't resist the urge to go to bed with him when the opportunity presents itself. All these diverse, even contradictory, aspects of the woman add up to a truly believable character portrait from Crepin.
Some of the most entertaining moments in this play come from the private scenes between Margaret, the now-much-older Annabella (Blythe Duff) and lady-in-waiting Phemy (Dani Heron), including Duff's hilarious handling of the bath scene.
Another private moment tells us in a nutshell the whole nature of these characters. James presents his wife with a wonderful (and expensive) mirror of great accuracy -- a gift which would indeed be a true rarity in the 1400s! All of them look into the mirror and are startled by their reflections (nice variations on the idea from each of the actors here!). Margaret, Phemy, and Annabella are pleasantly surprised, but James and Daisy both thought they were much better-looking than what they see. The metaphor of the title is now (pardon the pun) crystal clear.
James acts in a very determined way to undermine and alienate everyone: the nobles, the parliament, his eldest son and heir. In a dramatic scene in Act 2, he disinherits his eldest son, Jamie (Daniel Cahill) and bestows favour on his next son, Ross (Andrew Still) who is not yet a man grown. Jamie leaves in disgust, and -- as we find out presently -- colludes with the nobles who oppose his father.
After James mocks the parliament for the last time, Margaret steps forward and, in a passionate speech, persuades the aroused parliamentarians that in spite of her Danish birth, she is the Queen of Scots, has the good and welfare of Scotland in her heart, and has the experience and capability to rule jointly with them. Crepin's performance in this turning-point scene is totally magnificent, one of the great high points of the entire cycle of plays.
The historic James died at the hands of the rebellious nobles, with the connivance of his son who then became King James IV. But Rona Munro's last and greatest dramatic stroke is to have Jamie fight his own father, sword to sword, and kill him in person. Jamie then prepares for his coronation by taking off all his clothes and wrapping himself tightly in a stout chain with pointed links as an act of contrition for parricide, before allowing the motherly Annabella to dress him for the ceremony. As he does this, he quotes an earlier line about the significance of what is worn next to the skin. Because of the sheer concentration and intensity of Cahill's performance in this scene, I doubt that many people in the audience were especially troubled by the full nudity, nor should they have been. (The chain is historically accurate, although the scenario of Jamie directly killing his father is not. He wore the chain every year during Lent for the rest of his life, with added links put in every year.)
In a beautiful final vignette, both poetic and ritualistic in feeling, Annabella tells over Jamie's heritage as she hands him, one by one, jewels and rings that had belonged to all of his ancestors as we have seen them throughout the three plays. Duff's gentle tone in this recital of ancestry made it one of her finest moments of the entire cycle. While she was giving this moving speech, the people she named were gathering on the balcony, looking down at them. At last, the centre doors opened and King James IV walked forward into the blaze of light to his coronation, alone -- yet plainly accompanied in spirit by all his forerunners.
This epic triptych of plays was an incredible dramatic experience on every level I could possibly imagine. The complete cycle will be presented in Toronto two more times, on Saturday and Sunday, June 25 and 26.
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