In History Revealed’s ‘My life in history’ series, Owen Horsley talks about his role as director at the Royal Shakespeare Company
What made you want to become a theatre director and work with Shakespeare’s plays?
I knew I wanted to be a theatre director from the age of 15 when I directed a production of Dracula at school. It was a life-changing experience to be able to tell stories on stage and communicate to audiences.
Regarding Shakespeare specifically, I had always loved his plays as a child, but it was when I first started working with [theatre company] Cheek by Jowl that I knew classical theatre was for me. Not only was I lucky enough to be able to work on some truly amazing productions that toured around the world, but I was also able to see the impact of Shakespeare globally; his works transcend language, culture and borders.
I joined the Royal Shakespeare Company [RSC] in 2013, and since then I have totally immersed myself in the works of Shakespeare. It’s always the language that brings me back to him – for a writer to be able to find the words to articulate such variety of human experience is simply incredible.
Could you tell us about the plays you are currently directing for the RSC?
Henry VI, Parts 2 and 3 are two rarely performed Shakespeare plays that depict the events leading up to the Wars of the Roses [1455–87], which was one of the bloodiest periods in English history. It is an epic story about feuding families, politics, power, ego and barbarism. In this version, I have edited the plays so that all five battles take place in the second part, which we are calling Wars of the Roses, while the events that lead us to the battlefield are depicted in the first part, which we have entitled Rebellion.
What are the key challenges when directing a Shakespeare play?
One of the challenges when it comes to directing Shakespeare is the sheer scale of it. It’s not just the story itself and the number of fights and characters you have to consider, but also the scale of the language and the arguments.
It is a real workout both physically and mentally to invest and commit to them. But that is also the total joy of working with Shakespeare. During rehearsals we have the pleasure of grappling with these huge themes, which we then get to share with an audience. Challenging, but incredibly thrilling.
How do you engage a modern audience while staying true to the script?
With Wars of the Roses and Rebellion, I have edited the original text to create something that feels more filmic, immediate and urgent. While I haven’t changed the language itself, I have done this because I feel that modern audiences often respond well to a certain speed of storytelling that they are familiar with due to their engagement with TV and film.
I also think that these works – which Shakespeare wrote when he was 27 – feel very young and energetic, so I was motivated to highlight this in my edit. There is a roughness to them, and I never wanted to get in the way of that. So, although my version is very much an interpretation, I hope they represent the essence of what Shakespeare was trying to achieve. these plays deal with real events and figures.
Does this make it easier or harder when directing?
There are two versions of history for me – real history and Shakespeare’s history. In these works, Shakespeare plays fast and loose with real history, so although as a history geek I love to read about what actually happened, it is always important for me to follow his interpretation. Shakespeare was interested in creating drama and highlighting the human struggles within the history, so that is where my attention must go as well.
For example, when depicting the battle of Towton [1461], he starts with a group of egos, hell-bent on revenge, flinging insults back and forth. By doing this, he reveals it is personal vendetta and pride that causes thousands of people to die, not some heroic mission. I’m continually amazed by the incredible insight and empathy Shakespeare shows for the human experience and how relevant his observations are today.
Why do you believe audiences still come back to see Shakespeare?
It is an interesting question and one I thought about a lot about during the Covid lockdowns. As I say, it comes back to how Shakespeare presents the full breadth of human experience in his plays and how, over the centuries, these experiences still resonate with us. Whether it is a Scottish king holding two bloody daggers or a young girl standing on a balcony, he writes about the unresolved matters that surround our lives.
Similarly, as Henry VI sits on a molehill watching the bloodshed before him, he imagines another life – one of routine and order – and wishes to be released from the burden and pain he feels as king. No one in the audience is a king, but as he articulates that need, I think we feel our own sense of despair and helplessness when faced with war.
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This article was first published in the May 2022 issue of BBC History Revealed