History Cycle at Antioch College

NGLISH history as only Shakespeare could write it came to thrilling life last summer when the Antioch Area Theatre at Yellow Springs, Ohio, in conjunction with Antioch College, presented the complete cycle of history plays. For eight weeks the plays were presented in repertory form, but in the two final weeks of the ten-week season (July i to September 7) the great significance of the impressive cycle was revealed. In two Grand Repertoires, the eight plays-three parts of Henry VI had been fused into one play-were staged in chronological order in six evening and two matinee performances. Never in the United States, and only once in England under Frank Benson in i906 at Stratford, had the plays been so presented; and Benson did only the two tetralogies, excluding King John and Henry VIII. The cycle was conceived by Prof. Arthur Lithgow of Antioch College and carried out in conjunction with Profs. Meredith Dallas and Paul Treichler. Lithgow directed King John, I and II Henry IV, Henry VI, and Richard 111, and Dallas the remaining plays, Richard 11, Henry V, and Henry VIII. Both directors also assumed major roles in the plays. By working closely with each other, they achieved a notable unity of conception. The plays were presented not only as individual dramas but also as a historical sequence reflecting what was apparently Shakespeare's intention. Through contrast of rise and fall, usurpation and retribution, divine right and honest strength, we saw a continuity of life and monarchy that was above and beyond the death of the individual kings. And mixed with the machinations of the plotters, the verbal combats of rival factions, and the revealing soliloquies of ambition and despair, we were able to enjoy Shakespeare's broad humor, especially in the Henry IV and Henry V plays. Another notable achievement of this cycle was the great impetus it gave to the movement toward Elizabethan staging. Spectators at the Shakespeare Festival saw an outdoor stage which was constructed over the steps of the hundred-year-old ivy-clad Main Building of Antioch College. Not by imitation, but by similarity of purpose, do we find it similar to Tanya Moiseiwitsch's design for productions of the Lancastrian tetralogy at Stratford last year. (Cf. illustration in SQ II, 345.) Although the principle of alternation could have been better applied in some instances by a more judicious use of the inner and upper stages and better control of entrances, the principle was understood and used, and it is that which created the tempo and movement characteristic of Elizabethan staging.