Jane Howell's BBC First Tetralogy: Theatrical and Televisual Manipulation
 
     Jane Howell began her two-year project of taping the plays of
Shakespeare's first tetralogy for *The BBC TV Shakespeare* with a conception of
the sequence as a continuous whole. Further, she chose to use not only the same
actors but the same production crew and set throughout.[1] Her "signature" is
stylized and presentational: she is perfectly content to use television in the
service of the theatrical and the artificial. Her basic televisual strategy is
that of depth-of-field with ensemble compositions and long, continuous takes
("part of the production's fundamental approach"), recorded with wide-angle
camera lenses (*BBC 3 Henry VI*, 23). She does use montage during the battle
sequences from the end of *1 Henry VI* through *Richard III*, but montage is
the exception and not the rule -- confined for the most part to recording the
fighting.[2] That Howell directed all four plays allows us to explore the
consequences of her particular approach to putting Shakespeare before us on the
small screen.
      Howell's rhetorical strategy is presentational rather than
representational. Rejecting method acting, Howell insisted that her actors
speak and respect Shakespeare's verse: ". . . what is the line, what is the
intellectual sense, play the intellectual sense, stop mucking about with
emotions. Let the emotions follow the intellect" (*BBC 2 Henry VI*, 24 and *BBC
Richard III*, 22-23). Howell's respect for Shakespeare's verse is apparent in
the manner in which the language is delivered in these four plays. The poetry
is distinctly pronounced; metrically needed "ed's" are conspicuously heard. As
for the prose, the dialects of Cade, his followers, Horner. Peter, and the
other low characters, are especially emphasized. This stress is particularly
true of Brenda Blethyn's Joan La Pucelle, whose exaggerated dialect signifies
her character's lower-class origins. Howell also takes full advantage, when
appropriate, of television's ability to permit actors to speak their lines in a
much lower key than they could in the theatre. For example. in *2 Henry VI* in
a torch-lit night scene, Gloucester, as he talks with his wife Eleanor, lowers
his voice virtually to a whisper (lI.iv). Also, Peter Benson's Henry VI
consistently speaks in a subdued pious voice, conveying his Christian quietism.
As a result, it is dramatically effective when he raises his voice, as in act
three, scene two of *2 Henry VI*, to rebuke Suffolk powerfully.
     The theatrical aspects of this tetralogy are also handled
presentationally. All four plays are staged on a single set based on English,
"adventure playgrounds" (*BBC I Henry VI*, 23). This single set, however,
changes dramatically over the course of the cycle. Starting in *1 Henry VI*,
brightly painted in primary colors and largely open, it includes catwalks,
platforms, stairs, walls, and many doors. The cyclorama behind, containing
brilliant golds, is conspicuous even through open doors. Most of the staging
area is used, including the upper levels. Taken as a whole, the set acts as a
textured backdrop for the play that is filled with many actors and much
action.
     In *2 Henry VI*, the set looks darker than it was for *Part 1*. As Oliver
Bayldon, the set designer, notes, "It's still a play park but it's not a place
for playing games any more, it's got sinister. It's gone very sombre and
textury -- it's almost as though it has been boarded up and whitewashed and the
whitewash has gone grey" (*BBC 2 Henry VI*, 20). Sometimes, the cyclorama is
lit with a blue light, "effectively cutting out the brilliant golds in the
cloth that had glimmered over the first play" (*BBC 2 Henry VI*, 19). At other
times, the back wall is not even lit. Not as much of the set is used as in
*Part 1* either, signifying the more confined, domestic scope of this play. At
the beginning, some additional platforms have been erected, such as the one
that opens the play, from which the actors enter and on which the title, *Henry
VI Part 2*, is written. Gradually, these platforms disappear as the play
proceeds. The cyclorama can no longer be seen behind the open doors; instead,
we see a hanging rope netting placed in front of it.
     In *3 Henry VI*, the set gets darker still: "By *Part 3* . . . the
adventure playground has become burned and charred -- colours have been
subdued to black and grey and the colour of charred timber (Fenwick, *BBC 3
Henry VI*, 22). By now the primary colors have been completely painted over in
shades of blue-gray. The cyclorama has been repainted with gray rolled over
the gold-textured gauze, creating almost a natural wood effect (Bayldon, *BBC
3 Henry VI*, 22), and again, at times, the walls are completely dark. One of
the main doors through which the actors enter and depart is now battered and
darkened. The only exceptions to the bleakness of the set are the scenes at
the French court.
     By the time of *Richard III*, the set has become very enclosed. Free
standing doors now fill in once open spaces, and the rope netting is looped
up, suggesting dark clouds. The upper stages and stairs are seldom used. The
entire set looks very dark, dominated by dark browns with only an occasional
splash of color. Unquestionably, Howell conceived of the progress through the
tetralogy as a darkening one, reflecting "a historical development from an age
of chivalry to an age of conscienceless, ruthless killing, a breakdown in
order and ethics" (Fenwick. *BBC 2 Henry VI*, 18).
     Costuming undergoes a similar transformation. In *I Henry VI*, the
costumes are bright and heraldic until the death of Talbot when gray is
literally sprayed over them. Costume designer John Peacock comments on this
change: "Bright colours, primary colours, children's colours. I suppose; then
as the plays became more serious, the clothes became slightly more subdued.
darker" (*BBC I Henry VI*, 25). As the plays proceed, the garments get darker
and darker. Peacock explains some of the changes between *Part 1* and *Part
2*:
     All the feathers have gone: we had huge plume in the first part but
     they've all disappeared. The tabards were all bright red and gold or
     bright blue and gold; in this play they are the same tabards but they
     have been sprayed down to make them more subtle. . . . At first the
     designs were costumes, but now they are becoming *clothes*. (*BBC 2
     Henry VI* 18)
With so many characters on the set so often, costumes and flags are used to
identify factions as well as to distinguish between the British and the
French. However, by the time of *3 Henry VI*, not much difference exists
between the uniforms of the troops on either side of the civil conflict --
they are all generally gray, although some of the Lancastrians are costumed in
dark reds. On the whole, the costumes have become progressively darker and
more practical (Fenwick, *BBC 3 Henry VI*, 21). John Peacock relates that
Howell in *Richard III* wanted "the effect of three-piece suits." As for the
armor in *Richard III*, it "is all nearly metal, very different from *Part 1*
where it was all painted." Also Oliver Bayldon points out that a touch of
color was added: "Richard has these very shiny black and white banners, with a
fiercely aggressive-looking boar; then when Richmond come[s] in his banners
are green and white" (*BBC Richard III*, 24). Richard is dressed primarily in
black throughout the play; in contrast, Richmond, when he appears, wears shiny
silver armor. On the whole, the overall attitude toward clothes changes
through the sequence as they become more practical and more modern (Fenwick,
*BBC Richard III*, 24).
     Lighting in Howell's productions is similarly used metaphorically and
symbolically. *1 Henry VI* is generally brightly lit. During the night scenes,
however, the set is so dark that it tends to dissolve into that darkness. In
*2 Henry VI*, the lighting is significantly darker than *Part 1*. During the
night scenes here, only torches seem to provide light. At other times, the set
is so dark that no background is visible. This darkening continues through *3
Henry VI* and Richard III*.
     Howell's staging also reflects her presentational orientation. *Part 1*
is the most consistently martial play of the tetralogy. There are flourishes
and drums; alarums, excursions, and scalings; skirmishes, stormings, and
individual combats, several staged with no cuts (such as that between the
Dauphin and Pucelle in I.ii and that between Talbot and Pucelle in I.v). We
also see the explosions at the deaths of Salisbury and Gargrave in l.iv and at
the arrival of Talbot's "substance" in lI.iii. Howell uses the entire set,
staging the play as it might have been staged in Shakespeare's theatre. The
upper and lower stages, as well as the stairs and doors, are regularly
employed: armies run in from one set of doors and exit through others;
characters do the same, sometimes followed by the camera through doors, up
stairs, and across catwalks in battle sequences. Many characters often
populate the stage, usually including soldiers of the French and British
armies or bands of retainer of the English factions.
     Because *2 Henry VI* is less martial and more conspiratorial than *Part
1*, fewer characters appear on the set at any given time; however, the staging
remains, for the most part, presentational and theatrical: Howell makes no
attempt to create the illusion of "realistic" lists in II.iii as David Giles
had done in his *Richard II* for the BBC series. Less of the set is used in
*Part 2* than in *Part 1*, still less in *Part 3*, symbolically signifying
Howell's conception of a constricting tetralogy -- as the members of the
House, of Lancaster and York are progressively murdered or killed.
     In *Part 2*, individual combats, such as that between Clifford and York,
are staged differently from the way they had been in *Part 1*. Instead of
recording those combats from only one or two points of view in long takes,
Howell now uses dissolves, slow motion, and cuts that signify the intensity
and prolonged struggle between the two protagonists. Similar techniques appear
during the fighting between the two factions (such as in V.ii). In *3 Henry
VI*, the fighting sequences also use dissolves and cuts. These staging and
editing choices reflect Howell's idea about how violence was to be treated
throughout the tetralogy. She wanted the early fighting in *Part 1* to be "a
knockabout violence," "comic," and "to a certain extent romantic," with a
"gung ho, sporting quality" (*BBC 1 Henry VI*, 27 and *BBC 2 Henry VI*, 20).
Then with the major battles toward the end of *Part 1*, a slight change
occurs: the battle that begins in IV.vi is recorded with a single camera as
one continuous fight -- something very unusual:
     This climactic battle was carefully scored as a transition in term of
     style and in terms of the degree of violence inherent in the play. "We
     took it in stages," Howell explains. "The first stage was quite
     theatrical but the entire company was fighting in one space, which
     looked pretty spectacular but you knew it was theatrical. Then, after a
     bit of dialogue, it moved into another section: I took a bit of Talbot's
     speech out and did it in fighting terms -- showing how the French attack
     young Talbot. That was getting much more savage. Then there was another
     scene. Then we went into montage of very quick details, in which the
     killings were *awful*, brutal, savage; they were tight, fast and hard.
     Then followed Talbot's death, and that's when I started to slide the
     play into another gear in stylistic terms." (*BBC I Henry VI*, 27-28)
The battles and skirmishes in *Parts 2* and *3* reflect this change of mood in
the violence: They become more fierce in *Part 2* and very fierce in *Part 3*:
"the battles become more and more real and more and more personal and more and
more vicious in the will to survive and the will to destroy" (Fenwick, *BBC 2
Henry VI*, 21). This increasing viciousness is signified by what fight
arranger Malcolm Ranson calls "the killing montage" (*BBC 2 Henry VI*, 22).
*Part 3* signals yet another direction, as Ranson points out:
     Though the only principal you see killed in a fight is Warwick . . . you
     do have a number of death where principal are killed -- York gets
     killed, the young Prince Edward gets killed. The taunting of York get
     rather nasty and his death and Edward's are quite brutal. (*BBC Henry
     VI* 24)
During the battles of *Part 3*, Ranson remarks, "It's not individual combat
any more, it's lashing out in all directions" (*BBC 3 Henry VI*, 25).
     *Richard III* uses the most enclosed set and also the tightest framing
of all the plays in this tetralogy. While we may appreciate the metaphoric
point being made, the more restrictive framing creates some staging problems.
In act three, scene seven, we see Richard on the only upper stage used in this
production while the crowd of Londoners appears on the lower, main set.
Because Howell was generally framing her shots tighter in this production than
she has in the other three, she chose not to put Richard and the crowd in the
same shot and thereby denied us the chance to see the concurrent interactions
between Richard and the crowd. Additional problems result from the staging of
V.iii: Howell uses the same tent, table, and properties for both Richard and
Richmond. Granted, an interesting parallel is established, but the cuts
between the two often become disorienting. A more theatrical approach of
placing the two camps on different sides of the more restricted main set and
then panning or cutting between them would probably have been more effective
in stressing the opposition developing between "good" and "evil."
     The play, and thus the cycle, ends with a strikingly conceived image.
The camera pans from the victorious Henry VII to the dead Richard III, whose
chest is impaled with many spears and with Richmond's sword. Then, Howell
dissolves to dead bodies in a heap, in the background the sound of laughter.
The camera pans across the heap and tilts up to the top of it. There we see
the laughing Margaret, holding in a reverse Pieta pose (Richard's head on
Margaret's left arm) Richard's bloody, weapon-studded body -- an image John
O'Connor describes as a "stunning coda" (33). This set piece with "the whole
company bloodied and finally bowed" is, as Fenwick writes, "an image that
encapsulates the butchery and horror of the long civil wars" (*BBC Richard
III, 26).
     The acting in Howell's tetralogy also seems somewhat presentational and
stylized. Following the stage directions groups of characters all speak at
once, rare in the modern theatre where usually one character will speak for
the group or characters will alternate lines. In these plays, soliloquies are
sometimes directed to the camera (the Countess's in *I Henry VI*, II.iii) and
sometimes delivered as if the character were thinking aloud (York's in *2
Henry VI*, I.i and III.i). In the former example, the character achieves an
intimacy with the audience that in the latter case would be inappropriate.
Asides are usually directed to the camera. At times, Howell will, as she does
with Pucelle's aside in *I Henry VI*, I.ii, even have the camera behind the
character and have the character turn his or her head to address it, an
emphatic presentational strategy. Richard's asides are all addressed directly
to the camera, creating the intimacy with his audience traditional to the Vice
figure. Often they begin, in a long or medium shot; then either Richard will
walk closer to the camera or more often the camera will tighten the shot on
him. Richard may wink, smile, or laugh as he speaks; he often seems to finish
a thought, turn to leave, only to walk back into the close-up to resume his
aside. This action can occur several times before he finishes speaking and
either leaves the set or enters a discussion in progress. These techniques
create an elaborately explicit and intimate relationship between Richard and
the viewing audience that is entirely appropriate to both the play and
television.
     Howell's televisual approach to this tetralogy, especially in *1 Henry
VI*, amounts to perhaps the purest example of the depth-of-field strategy in
the entire BBC series. Her fundamental technique involves using long takes and
deep-field ensemble compositions. Henry Fenwick introduces senior cameraman
Jim Atkinson's observations about this approach:
     *The continuing problem of shooting Shakespeare for television has been
     that so may of his scenes involve large numbers of people, each of whom
     is important, so television two-shots will not serve the play.* As Jim
     Atkinson points out . . . *"With Shakespeare you need to see as many
     people all the time as you possibly can arrange without being slack and
     uninteresting. Since the language is flowing you never want to miss
     anybody."* Added to this demand is the developing practice, worked out
     as the plays have been in continual production, of *having long takes
     without cuts so that the action in the studio can run uninterrupted.*
     (*BBC I Henry VI*, 28-29) [My emphasis]
The passages emphasized here reflect the appropriateness of the depth-of-field
strategy for transferring any Shakespeare play to television. The importance
of the people present and of the effect of the language on those people
demands televisual techniques that record those characters and their speeches
in deep-field compositions and long takes.
     Howell's mastery of this strategy is evident in that many of her scenes,
such as the one in which the Father kills his Son and the Son kills his Father
(*3 Henry VI*, II.v), are recorded in a single take with no cuts. Other
scenes, such as the one between Margaret, the Duchess of York, and Queen
Elizabeth (*Richard III*, IV.iv), are done with long takes and few cuts. When
Howell does cut, she usually does so during dialogue in which there is some
contention or disharmony between individuals or factions. We might call these
"cuts of opposition." Howell approaches cutting quite methodically:
     Any text, I mark up into units and sections -- the units are where the
     thoughts change and the sections are like the paragraphs. The cuts tend
     to come on those marks. So, I am hoping that the cuts reinforce the
     sense because I am trying to cut with the argument, not ever
     arbitrarily. ("Interview")
Occasionally, Howell cuts to indicate a change in point of view, but usually
these cuts are from one deep-field ensemble shot to another. As a result, we
continue to experience reactions from those characters who remain in the shot,
with associations still being established within the frame. Also, when Howell
uses a reaction shot, it too normally includes other characters. Howell's
takes are generally long, although as she proceeds through the tetralogy they
get shorter. By this shortening, Howell emphasizes the growing tensions
inherent in the plays. Nevertheless, there is always at least one scene in
each of the four plays recorded in a single take with no cuts. As stated,
Howell uses montage during battles and in some individual combats (especially
in *3 Henry VI*) as visual punctuation, but rarely do montage techniques
appear under other circumstances until *Richard III*. As Giles does in Richard
II's last soliloquy, Howell uses dissolves within a scene to suggest the
passage of time (e.g., *1 Henry VI*, I.iv and V.iii; *2 Henry VI*, IV.viii).
This interesting technique, employed often in the BBC series by Elijah
Moshinsky, exploits a mechanical technology to make a visual interpretation of
the text in a manner that cannot so easily be duplicated in live theatre.
     Howell's *mise en scene* is characterized by a fluid camera combined
with movement by the actors in ensemble shots, making her blocking
exceptionally important. Her framing appears predominately loose, yet, as with
her takes, it gets tighter as she proceeds through the four plays, reflecting
the overall enclosing nature of the sequence as the attrition in the ranks of
the major players in this deadly conflict occurs, in the end distilling the
evil of the times into the distorted figure of Richard III. Tighter framing is
reserved in the first two parts of *Henry VI* for conspiracies and arguments,
such as the Temple Garden scene, signifying tensions present and to come -- a
visual preparation for the last two plays in the tetralogy.
     To sum up, Howell makes notable changes in her style as she proceeds
through the first tetralogy. These changes reflect a consciously planned
symbolic and metaphoric manipulation of theatrical and televisual techniques.
Her lighting changes from bright to dark; her set, from primary colored to
dark gray and from open to enclosed; and her costumes, from colorful to black
and gray. Furthermore, she moves from a textbook depth-of-field strategy to
include montage techniques and point of view cutting as well as moving from
very loose to increasingly tighter framing.
     Besides her outstanding stylistic accomplishments, Jane Howell, in these
four productions, launches an all-out assault on the assumption that televised
Shakespeare must use "realistic" film techniques and naturalistic production
designs.[3] Howell maintains that producing Shakespeare's plays for television
differs greatly from doing them for film: "A great admirer of Orson Welles's
*Falstaff* . . . she points out that nevertheless film techniques are largely
irrelevant to the overall approach in these television Shakespeares" (Fenwick,
*BBC 2 Henry VI*, 21). In fact, Howell consistently favors strategies
subversive to representationalism.
     The handling of soliloquies and asides manifests these differences among
televisual approaches. Although direct address to the audience is common in
the theatre, direct address by looking right into the camera is seldom used in
narrative film since this strategy destroys the illusion of the transparency
of the film image.[4] In Orson Welles's 1966 film *Falstaff: Chimes at
Midnight*, for example, characters never look straight into the camera during
asides and soliloquies. Welles even transforms Falstaff's catechism on honor
into a direct address to Hal to prevent the possible artificiality of having a
character looking into the camera. With the possible exception of voice-overs
or eliminating them altogether, having asides to the audience and soliloquies
spoken as if the character were thinking aloud and not looking at the camera
is the most naturalistic way of dealing with them on television. In
television, especially televised theatre that strives for presentationalism
rather than representationalism, destroying the illusion of transparency by
techniques such as direct address to the camera is not only appropriate but
part of the very quality of television that makes it so intimate -- its
ability to establish a direct partnership between the actor on the screen and
the often solitary spectator before the television set. What is significant is
that a television director can, as Jane Howell has demonstrated, successfully
use techniques at a film director would not even consider using.
 
Hardy M. Cook
Bowie State University
 
                              Notes
 
[1] The only major change among the production crew for the four plays was
that Cecile Hay-Arthur replaced Cherry Alston as make-up artist.
 
[2] For a discussion of my distinction between the depth-of-field and the
montage styles of presenting Shakespeare on television, see my article "Two
*Lear*s for Television: An Exploration of Televisual Strategies,"
*Literature/Film Quarterly* 14 (1986): 179-86, reprinted in *Shakespeare on
Television: An Anthology of Essays and Reviews*, eds. J. C. Bulman and H. R.
Coursen (Hanover, NH: UP of New England) 122-29.
 
[3] See James C. Bulman's "The BBC Shakespeare and 'House Style,'" *SQ* 35
(1984): 571-81.
 
[4] For an excellent discussion of the transparency in narrative film see
Chapter 3, "Coherence and Transparency in Classical Narrative Film,'' in
George M. Wilson's *Narration in Light: Studies in Cinematic Point of View*,
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986.
 
                         Works Cited
 
*The BBC TV Shakespeare. Henry VI Part 1*. London: BBC, 1983.
 
*The BBC TV Shakespeare. Henry VI Part 2*. London: BBC, 1983.
 
*The BBC TV Shakespeare. Henry VI Part 3*. London: BBC, 1983.
 
*The BBC TV Shakespeare. Richard III*. London: BBC, 1983.
 
Bulman, James C. "The BBC Shakespeare and 'House Style."' *SQ* 35 (1984): 571-
81.
 
Howell, Jane. Interview. Comments on Papers for Shakespeare Association of
America 1988 Annual Meeting Seminar: "Shakespeare and Television: The Work of
Jane Howell," conducted by Mary Z. Maher. 14 March 1988. Used with Jane
Howell's permission.
 
O'Connor, John C. "Shakespeare's Challenge Brilliantly Met. " *New York Times*
10 April 1983, sec. 2: 27,33.
 
Wilson, George M . *Narration in Light: Studies in Cinematic Point of View*.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986.