Chels

Shakespeare’s histories and romances are often overlooked – they’re the real middle children of his works. We seem to be drawn towards the comedies and tragedies, especially when it comes to adapting his works, and his other plays seem to draw less interest. His poetry, too – aside from a handful of sonnets, his poetic works are overshadowed by his plays.

The histories are a self-explanatory category – a series of dramatised biographies of English kings of the past; Henries IV-VII, Richard I and II, and King John. Shakespeare’s histories took a similar approach to The Crown – he covered the lives of kings spanning four centuries of English history, with the most recent being Henry VII, grandfather to Elizabeth I, Queen of England for the majority of his life. Interestingly, Shakespeare worked collaboratively on Henry VIII with John Fletcher a decade after the death of Elizabeth I, and over a decade after his previous English Monarch play, which perhaps suggests that he waited until distance was placed between the real events and his dramatisation, especially as the Queen was alleged to be a fan of his work.

The romances, however, are a more complicated category. They’re the works that aren’t quite tragedies, but aren’t quite comedies. Sometimes they’re referred to as ‘problem plays’ due to the ‘problem’ of categorising them – there are elements of comedy and elements of tragedy, but the plays deal with complex social issues and morals, and often have ambiguous endings. Characters are less likely to be wholly ‘good’ or ‘bad’. This category has proved to be difficult, though. Some scholars are able to argue for Hamlet’s position as a problem play, though it is clearly also a tragedy. For the purposes of categorising the plays neatly, I prefer to use romance to categorise the remaining plays.

Both the histories and the romances have significantly fewer adaptations than the tragedies and comedies, particularly when it comes to screen adaptations. Not only that, but the adaptations themselves seem to draw less attention than those of his more well-known plays. My final list of adaptation recommendations is much shorter than the previous two, despite combining two categories of play. I’m very lucky to have studied both The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale; it meant that I was introduced to more adaptations for each of these plays.

The Histories

Henry IV

We begin with a modern interpretation – My Own Private Idaho (1991). The film was a commercial and critical success on release, and has stayed popular, becoming a cult classic especially among queer audiences. It’s loosely based on the two Henry IV plays and Henry V, with Keanu Reeves as Scott embodying the young Prince Hal. It’s a modern adaptation with Scott and Mike as young gay hustlers, but some dialogue is lifted directly from the play, as well as scenes that mirror those written by Shakespeare.

Richard II

It’s no secret that I love adaptations that play with gender. In the 90s, Deborah Warner cast Fiona Shaw as the title role in Richard II. It was filmed and released on television, which brought more eyes to the production. The one problem with adaptations that play with gender is that virtually all discussion is reduced to thinly veiled insistence that women should not play male characters (though to those same people, casting a man as a female character is revolutionary – yawn). 

Fiona Shaw speaks about why she took on the role, and some of the choices made, here, as part of the DVD rerelease of the production. 

The Romances

The Winter’s Tale

The Winter’s Tale was performed by the Royal Ballet in 2014. I am not particularly a ballet fan – not in the sense that I don’t enjoy it, just that I have very little experience with the art, and as such I have no authority on what is good or bad. What I do know, however, is that I enjoyed this adaptation. There was a specific segment featuring Edward Watson as Leontes which unnerved me so much that it was almost frightening. Prior to watching, I had no particularly strong feelings regarding Leontes as a character, but this scene portrays his jealousy and anguish, as well as his need for revenge and control, so powerfully. 

Cheek By Jowl produced a modern interpretation of The Winter’s Tale in 2015. It’s certainly an interesting performance. I don’t dislike it – I enjoyed it enough to recommend it, but there were a lot of bold choices made. It’s quite graphic, as a play, which I imagine was done to be shocking, and I’m still not sure if I liked that choice, personally, but it also incorporates a lot of physicality and movement that isn’t always seen in Shakespeare performances, which I did think was interesting. It’s the sort of play I think is very polarising – there are parts that I really enjoyed, and parts that I really didn’t, and in a way that’s what makes it so watchable.

The Tempest

The Tempest is another play that has allowed for interesting adaptations surrounding gender. Perhaps my favourite is the 2010 film adaptation starring Helen Mirren as Prospera, a female Prospero. The change adds another layer to Antonio’s usurping of Prospero, as Prospera is married to the Duke, meaning that her title is taken away from her because she is a woman. Also, Helen Mirren is another powerhouse actress who transforms the role. Actresses playing male Shakespeare characters rarely disappoint.

Forbidden Planet (1956) is another cult classic film – though this time it hadn’t been directly stated to be an adaptation of The Tempest, the characters and the storyline of the film are very similar, so it’s likely that it was inspired by, if not loosely based on, the play. The film sets the storyline in the 23rd century, with a spaceship crashed on a distant planet. 

Cirque du Soleil’s 2012 Amaluna show was also inspired by The Tempest. Cirque du Soleil’s performances combine circus stunts, gymnastics, aerial arts, and ballet to tell their stories. Again, this adaptation replaces Prospero with a female Prospera, the leader of an island full of goddesses and interconnected with the moon. The show celebrates the feminine in all its forms, with women in multiple roles in their society, only interrupted by the arrival of a shipwrecked group of men.

With that, my Shakespeare adaptations recommendations come to an end. Did I miss any favourites?

I hope that there will be more adaptations in the coming years, especially of the lesser celebrated plays. As much as I complain about the current film climate of remakes and sequels, I would (hypocritically) like to see some more classic works getting adaptations, whether plays or novels, or even poetry.