Howard Brenton: Anne Boleyn, James/Buckingham and other RPF

[selenak]

An the advice of jesuswasbatman, I ordered Howard Brenton's new play Anne Boleyn, since I can't travel to England and watch it myself. I'd like to; it's an interesting play, though I'm not completely sure the use of two time frames - Anne's story on the one hand, James VI and I directly after his ascension to the throne of England on the other - works or is really necessary. Not that the James scenes are boring. In fact, it's a take on the character I found convincing, best encapsulated in Robert Cecil going from facepalming at the thought he made this boorish fool king of England to realizing, hang on, he's actually really bright and underestimated at one's peril. George Villiers (the future Duke of Buckingham) showing up as James' new boyfriend had me going "hang on, I thought he and James didn't become an item until much later in James' reign, especially seeing as he managed to become pals with James' son Charles I as well" and then handwaving it; the identity of the boyfriend isn't the point, he shows up mostly to showcase James' way of handling both his relationships and his sexuality. Anyway, it's not that I don't see the red thread - James and his order to translate the bible concluding what Anne and her patronage of William Tyndale started - and it's an alternative to the way other depictions of Anne's life give her a postumous victory (i.e. by pointing out her daughter becomes queen) - but I still think the Anne parts of the play would have been self sufficient without this. Maybe seeing it performed would have made a difference, of course.

In his preface, Brenton talks about the various interpretations of Anne both in fictional and in non-fictional work (i.e. David Starkey versus Antonia Fraser versus The Tudors versus Wolf Hall); his own is of Anne as a sincere Protestant who, as opposed to seeing Protestant theologians as convenient supporters in order to become queen, sees her relationship with Henry and becoming queen as a convenient way to get the English reformation going. (Though she also comes to love him.) ("It is as if there was a Joan of Arc, driven by a religious vision, within the more familiar figure of Anne the dazzling sexual predator.") Her one time ally in this, Thomas Cromwell, turning against her is caused by her discovery that he was stealing huge sums of money from the dissolution of the monasteries which was supposed to go to universities and schools. Actually, I don't think this is completely new; as far as I recall, historians during Elizabeth's reign solved the conundrum of how to present the mother of the current queen without making her father look bad for executing her or to adher to the post-execution vilification of her by emphasizing her involvement with the Protestant theologians of her day and describing her as a Protestant martyr, brought down by counsellors who lied to the king about her, and playing down her sexuality. In his play, Brenton goes for a more modern version of this: his Anne is flirtatious, ambitious and certainly has a temper ("I just wish the bitch would piss off to a convent", re: Katherine of Aragon), but is utterly sincere about her Protestant agenda. Her two encounters with William Tyndale are highlights of the play, with the second one devastating to her as his conscience doesn't allow him to support her ("Against what the world says, I think you have Christ within you. But the King must take back his true wife"). Near as powerful are the scenes between Anne and Thomas Cromwell. (I didn't think that much of The Tudors, but they had some interesting UST between these two, and I think Brenton uses that as well, at least from Cromwell's side.) Because Brenton omits the breakdown of Henry's and Anne's relationship after Elizabeth's birth (we basically go from said birth to Anne's second stillbirth, where Henry still reacts more sensitively than history reports; and then he does not show up on stage again), his Henry VIII. is near exclusively a besotted lover, with the darker sides non-apparant, and not as important a character on stage as Cromwell, Tyndale and Wolsey. It's an unusual choice, but makes for a different persective. Also unusual - in fact, not used in any fictional presentation of Anne Boleyn's story I've read or seen - is making her sister-in-law, Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, her friend and supporter who basically gets bullied, blackmailed and scared by Cromwell into turning against her, instead of giving Lady Rochford her usual motivation of jealousy (and a score to settle with her neglectful husband George). Given that Lady Rochford years later, when she was about to be executed in the context of Katherine Howard's trial, confessed that her incest accusation against George and Anne had been false and was caused by jealousy, and that this was years after the fall and death of Thomas Cromwell (meaning she could have safely blamed him), I don't think it holds up historically, but in the context of the play I find it appealing because the friendship between Anne and her is actually quite touching.

Now, plays about centuries old people can take liberties as much as they want without this feeling intrusive or the reader/watcher feeling voyeuristic, because in most cases, time really makes a difference. It's a bit more tricky for me with current day cases, but I'm not always able to resist, and at any rate sometimes amused and sometimes appalled and sometimes in agreement when I, say, check out fandomsecrets and see what other people come up with.



If you've read my review of The Queen some years back, you know I'm guilty of this one as well:




Personally, I blame Peter Morgan for structuring his script a bit like an odd couple romantic comedy, including letting film!Cherie tease her husband about his crush. Plus, you know, Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen have chemistry. I try to remind myself that by crushing even more on George W. and making New Labour Tory in all but in name, real life Tony Blair lost all my sympathies, plus my Jacobin father mutters "get rid of them" at the thought of monarchs in my head, but then I think that if I can differentiate between real English monarchs in the past and their Shakespearean presentations and like or dislike those independently from each other, I should be able to do so with current day English monarchs and their ( ex) PMs. Also, not having read a single biography of either Elizabeth II or Tony Blair helps; I don't know about their real life counterparts more than any newspaper does.

Meanwhile, back in February someone posted this fandom secret:



And there, having read quite a lot of biographies, I go "err, no, they'd kill each other in a week". Not over John, mind you, but seeing that, and I say this with affection for both parties, they both come across as prefering to be alphas in their romantic relationships. But then I think, self, biographies or no biographies, you don't know these people, either, and isn't it actually at least a bit more likely than shipping fictional Blairs with the Queen? Which it is. It's weird to think that Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney have known each other for more than 40 years now, far longer than either of them ever knew John. Mind you, the weird cycle of verbal digs and reconciliations they have going since decades strikes me as more how you relate to family than anything else (i.e. people you might not choose to be friends with if you could, but who simply are part of your life for better and worse and who have shared too much to think them away). (Or maybe they're keeing said cycle going because it's a way of missing John. What do I know?) The younger McCartneys certainly seem to treat Yoko as one of the clan; check out Stella cajoling her and brother James into advertising Meat Free Monday together last year:

As to whether John "would have wanted it that way": err. If Philip Norman is to be believed he'd at least have found it hot. Well, he had a way of equating the two and his relationships with them. Take this 1980 examples. In the first, John, in reply to a question about the public perception that Yoko controls him, launches in the following passionate rant:

For those of you not able to listen to YouTube, here's the transcript:

John: Nobody controls me. I'm uncontrollable. The only one who controls me is me, and that's just barely possible. Nobody ever said anything about Paul's having a spell on me when I was with him for a long time or my having one on Paul! They never thought that was abnormal in those days, two guys together!
Yoko: They might have.
John: Or four guys together! In those days? Why didn't they ever say, "How come those guys don't split up? I mean, what's going on backstage? I mean, what is that? What is this Paul and John business?"
Yoko: Yes.
John: "Why else - how can they be together so long?" We spent more time together in the early days than John and Yoko: the four of us sleeping in the same room, practically in the same bed, in the same truck, living together night and day, doing everything together! Nobody said a damn thing about being under a spell!


(If that sounds somewhat familiar to you, a slightly edited version is in the published Playboy interview; same content, just minus Yoko's asides and some sentences in a different order.) Of course, in the days of internet fandom, when listening to this one is irrestistably tempted to ask "err, John, are you complaining people didn't 'ship you with Paul back in the day?" I mean, I know what he's actually complaining about is the double standard in the perception of women and men in the media and fandom, but the phrasing is just very... Lennonesque. In a more relaxed mode, and on the day of his death, in an interview with RKO Radio, he waxes nostalgically about his respective first encounters with both and having discovered and chosen them both (at 2.55):

Transcript for nonYouTube users:

"I was saying to somebody the other day: 'There's only two artists I've ever worked with for more than one night stands, as it were. That's Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono.' I think that's a pretty damned good choice! Because in the history of the Beatles...Paul met me the first day I did 'Be-Bop-A-Lula' live on stage, okay? And a fr--a mutual friend brought him to see my group called The Quarrymen and we met and we talked after the show and I--I saw he had talent and he was playing guitar backstage, doing 'Twenty-Flight Rock' by Eddie Cochran, and I turned 'round to him right then on first meeting and said, 'Do you want to join the group?' And he said, 'Mmmm, hmmm, yunno, mmmm, hmmm hmmm hmm...' And I think he said yes the next day. As I recall it. Now, George came through Paul and Ringo came through George, although of course I had a say in where they came from, but the only--the person I actually picked as my partner, who I recognized had talent and I could get on with, was Paul. Twelve or however many years later I met Yoko, I had the same feeling. It was a different feel, but I had the same feeling. So I think as a talent scout I've done pretty damm well!"

At which point I wonder whether in the following decades Yoko and Paul at some point bonded over "didn't we also discover him, as it were?" and "so, that unability of his of talking about you without also talking about me - endearing or annoying?"

...but I still think as a couple, they'd kill each other in a week.