Alas, Poor Falstaff

Anyone who supposes Shakespeare can be readily transplanted from one medium to another should read J. L. Styan’s study Shakespeare’s Stagecraft to see how snugly the poet tailored his work to the little platform of the Globe Theatre. He seems never to have written a scene without visualizing the actual blocking of the actors, and many of the speeches lose their force when removed from their theatrical tableaux. Television, with its insistence on the closeup, destroys the spatial relations on which such effects depend, its necessary intimacy smothering the soaring power of an eloquence composed to ring out to the remotest spectators. You wouldn’t want to be eyeball-to-eyeball with Pavarotti when he hits his high C. Where do you put the camera when Othello cries that he’ll tear Desdemona all to pieces? In order to preserve the play’s spatial values, you’d have to leave the damned thing in one place the whole time; but that would never do for TV.

The BBC’s new Henry IV, Part I keeps much of the play’s action intact, particularly in the red-hot exchange between Jon Finch’s Henry and Tim Pigott-Smith’s Hotspur. But the closeup takes its toll; it exacts verisimilitude whether appropriate or not, and brutally punishes anything less. So when Prince Hal slays Hotspur, the dying man’s mouth must fill with blood, which distracts even if it doesn’t disgust, and his great last speech has to be gurgled. But meanwhile, the rest of the battle seems rather fake, with a fakery made inexcusable by the authenticating touch of the blood.

JS

About the Author

Joseph Sobran

Anyone who supposes Shakespeare can be readily transplanted from one medium to another should read J. L. Styan’s study Shakespeare’s Stagecraft to see how snugly the poet tailored his work to the little platform of the Globe Theatre. He seems never to have written a scene without visualizing the actual blocking of the actors, and many of the speeches lose their force when removed from their theatrical tableaux. Television, with its insistence on the closeup, destroys the spatial relations on which such effects depend, its necessary intimacy smothering the soaring power of an eloquence composed to ring out to the remotest spectators. You wouldn’t want to be eyeball-to-eyeball with Pavarotti when he hits his high C. Where do you put the camera when Othello cries that he’ll tear Desdemona all to pieces? In order to preserve the play’s spatial values, you’d have to leave the damned thing in one place the whole time; but that would never do for TV.

The BBC’s new Henry IV, Part I keeps much of the play’s action intact, particularly in the red-hot exchange between Jon Finch’s Henry and Tim Pigott-Smith’s Hotspur. But the closeup takes its toll; it exacts verisimilitude whether appropriate or not, and brutally punishes anything less. So when Prince Hal slays Hotspur, the dying man’s mouth must fill with blood, which distracts even if it doesn’t disgust, and his great last speech has to be gurgled. But meanwhile, the rest of the battle seems rather fake, with a fakery made inexcusable by the authenticating touch of the blood.