The brilliant Director Robert Johnson of BURNING HOUSE is staging this comprehensive plays as two parts. If you have been to THE BREATH OF KINGS you will enjoy reading this interview; and if you’re about to go to the final few performances, you will find Robert’s thoughts fascinating.
Q: Tell us about your first encounter with the history plays. Do you remember your initial response and why did you choose these three?
A: I’d say it’s three plays and a bit. Henry 6 Part 2, Henry 6 Part 3, Richard 3 and a little bit of Henry 6 Part 1. I spent a summer about a decade ago reading through Shakespeare’s work chronologically and remember diving into Henry 6 Part 2 (technically the first one he wrote) and hungrily devouring the rest of the tetralogy. They have this almost giddy sense of life inside them – they’re comedy, tragedy, court romance and political thriller all rolled into one. I remember being instantly gripped by the first scene in Henry Six Part Two. A young Princess Margaret is presented to Henry the Sixth as his wife, the court hears the news that they have lost major territories in France, a man does his best to hide his emotions as the love of his life begins a relationship with the King, one faction of the court begins to plot the demise of one of their own and then Richard of York has a killer monologue about how he intends to steal the throne from Henry – and this was all in the first scene. They’re dense, action-packed plays that really zip along, and despite being some of his earlier work (and over the last ten years the consensus has grown that the Henry plays were co-written with Christopher Marlowe) you can see all of his trademark humanity and wit on full display – and this will of course take full flight in the Tragedy of Richard the Third.
Q: What inspired you to direct this play?
A: Many things. As an audience member living in Melbourne I was hungry for more large festival-size work. I always love seeing massive all-day theatre events, and these seemed to satisfy that craving. On a purely personal note I also relished the challenge of it. We’ve divided the tetralogy into two plays (Henry 6 and Richard 3) and the idea of staging them together was very appealing – there’s a size and ambitiousness to it which excites me, and I hope excites an audience.
I was also struck by just how rich the Henry plays were, and how much seeing them illuminated Richard the Third. We get to see him as a teenager and young man, a product of violence and war and loneliness, who grew up losing a father and a sibling and with very little love from him mother. For those fond of Richard the Third this will be an absolute treat – you get a massive prequel about everything that happened before. They’re plays bursting at the seams with memorable characters and beautiful story-telling and the fact that no one ever really stages them made me incredibly excited to do so. We get to put on one of those rare things – a Shakespeare play where most people don’t know what’s going to happen!
Q: The last time you sat down with TAGG in 2022 you were working on the chaotic spectacle of Caligula and the elegiac chamberpiece Little Eyolf. What’s been the focus of your practice since then?
A: Over the last three years I’ve started lecturing at universities on Theatre History, with a specific focus on Renaissance and pre-Renaissance theatre. What this has meant is I’ve been spending a lot of time with theatre cultures who performed outdoors. And this wasn’t just because of a lack of electricity. This was because the artists valued being able to see the audience and have a deep connection with them. With Shakespeare and his contemporaries in particular, heady with the bounteous (new) philosophies of humanism and individualism, this actually meant something very specific and special. The audience were to be welcomed into the space in a humanistic spirit – love was to be shared amongst them all, and they were to be allowed to feel as part of the story-telling process. I think we lose this sometimes in our theatre making practice today and a lot of my work over the last three years (which has been a run of Shakespeare and Greek plays mainly) has been exploring how we can focus on theatre’s most important aspect – a dynamic relationship between actor and audience.
The Breath of Kings is a continuation of this work. It’s in the round, audiences have the choice to sit, or to stand, or sit on the floor. We’re trying to create our own communal Globe in the Theatre Works space. So whilst I wouldn’t call this participatory theatre it should feel very direct, and the audience should feel very included in the story telling.
Q: You seem to have a fascination with tragedy. What attracts you to the work that Burning House chooses to do?
A: There’s a wonderful Albert Camus quote I think about quite a lot: Always go too far, because that is where you will find the truth. I’m drawn to that extreme – of living as intensely as possible on the line between life and death, and exploring it on stage as well. I think its where we see the very best of humanity as well. The themes that I’m interested in exploring in my work – things like our relationship with God, how love and life can flourish in times of adversity, the full potential of the human spirit – all of these themes resonate for me most powerfully in the furnace of love and war.
And for me it’s never enough to just go to the theatre for a cheeky chuckle and some light companionship. Its so easy to find good stories and warm comfort without leaving the couch – so for me theatre has to be a place that illuminates the soul, that leaves one shaken and raw, and deeply in love with humanity.
Q: You’ve set the production in the present day. What do you think Shakespeare would think of it?
A: I say this with a degree of humility, but I think he’d approve. I’ve really tried to understand it as a humanistic text – that the love and delight in the full range of human experiences that were being celebrated when Shakespeare wrote the play are being honoured. I’ve also tried very hard to think about what the experience would have been like for the original audience – and how sitting and standing in The Rose theatre (and then the Curtain, the Theatre and the Globe after it) would have felt, and how the architecture of those spaces informed both performance and reception. And I think he’d love the suits and the phones and all the trappings of the modern world. His Romans in Titus Andronicus wore Elizabethan outfits when he staged it – I think he’d be very happy that his work is being treated as a living, breathing thing made for a contemporary audience and not a museum piece.
I think he’d also be pretty stoked that both the Henry 6 plays and Richard 3 are still being put on. The Henry 6 plays are what made his name and proved incredibly popular throughout his life, and Richard is the first play he wrote where he is fully in command of his powers as one of the world’s best playwrights. It’s been such a gift working on them – they really are undiscovered gems, and ones audiences are unlikely to see for quite a while.
Written by William Shakespeare & Christopher Marlowe – Directed and Adapted by Robert Johnson –
Performed by George Abbott, Elyse Batson, Claire Birnie, Kaitlin Devine, Kim Devitt, CJ Du Blet, Claire Duncan, Sean Halley, Luke Hill Smith, Jasmine Hosken, Flynn Lhuede, Tobias Manderson Galvin, Ellen Marning, James Martin, Will Martin, Kadey McIntosh, Hayley Michaels, Shane Palmer, Kristilee Ransley, Samantha Schmidt, Hamish Suttie, Connor Sweeney, Alexander Tomisich, Shivantha Wijesinha, Fletcher Von Arx and Faun Xe –
(some actors in a genealogical tree)
Set Design by Ishan Vivekanantham,
Costume Design by Tait Adams & Zachary Dixon –
Hair and Make Up Design by Kadey McIntosh –
Lighting by Cale Dennis –
Produced by Jessica Doutch, Robert Johnson – Production Management by Jade Hibbert –
Stage Management by Clara Kamm & Kara Floyd –
Assistant Stage Management by Savannah Fagance & Mia Stefani –
Assistant Direction by Holly Pirrett
25 October – 8 November
Previews: 25 October 2:30pm (Henry 6) and 7:00pm (Richard 3)
Shows: Sunday 26 October, Tuesday 28 October – Sunday 2 November, Tuesday 4 November – Saturday 8 November.
Part One (Henry 6) plays 2:30pm on Saturdays and Sunday, and 7:00pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Part Two (Richard 3) plays 7:00pm on Saturdays, Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Tickets: $55.00 Full (for One Part), $48.00 Concession (for One Part), $40.00 Preview (for One Part). Discounts apply if seeing both plays.
Bookings: https://www.theatreworks.org.au/2025/breath-of-kings
Venue: Theatre Works, 14 Acland, St St Kilda
http://www.burninghousetheatre.com/
Run time: Henry Six – 3 hours 10 minutes including interval. Richard Three – 2 hours 40 including interval.
Age suitability: 15+
Warning: child death, simulated violence
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Robert Johnson
Artistic Director
SONS OF MARS, Rob’s new novel about Julius Caesar’s conquests if he had survived the Ides of March is now available on Kindle. https://www.amazon.com.au/Sons-Mars-Caesars-Blood-Book-ebook/dp/B0BY9267GY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3OLURW2LBR4E6&keywords=robert+johnson+sons+of+mars&qid=1678841828&sprefix=robert+johnson+sons+ofm+%2Caps%2C345&sr=8-1
P: +61410 718876
E: johnsonrma@gmail.com
W: www.robertjohnsondirector.com
W: www.burninghousetheatre.com
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