The State: ‘My Poor Kingdom, Sick with Civil Blows’

Abstract

Of the four productions in discussion, it has been the 1979 television version which has been most explicit about the king’s sickness. There was no genteel enfeeblement here. The king had a disease. Its symptoms were obvious and distasteful, copied carefully by Elizabeth Moss in her make-up scheme from illustrations in a medical book. In Part 2, Jon Finch’s face was progressively invaded by a scarlet and yellow crust around his mouth, nose and cheeks. His hands were covered with suede gloves, but both the gloves and the sleeves of his expensive robe were suggestively discoloured, as if the disease was seeping through them. Once again, the medium of television was able economically to draw attention to a central symbol of the play, by its capacity to close in on detail. In the echoing state-chamber in which King Henry complained to his other sons about the sins of his heir, he sat hunched, in his chair, as if cold. Then he struggled up and stood slightly swaying and perceptibly shaking, wringing his gloved hands. The camera ‘saw’ him as if peeping through the semi-circle of noblemen around him, and caught them slightly edging away, glancing nervously at each other.