Splitting the Kingdom--Still Bad

The Tragedie of Gorboduc by Thomas Norton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

More than any play I've ever read--more, even, than any radio play I've ever encountered--this work is composed entirely of dialogue. Just characters standing on stage, delivering formal speeches in fancy clothes. No action. No sword fights. No running. No death scenes. The notes in the edition I read (from the Elizabethan drama website) warned that there is virtually no action in the play, and I thought that was hyperbole.

Nope. Other than entrances and exits, everything happens offstage. People die, then the characters get together to talk about it.

I mean, it's surprisingly entertaining. It's a sort of King Lear story, set in pre-Roman Britain, where a kingdom divided in two falls into civil war and chaos, and it works, to a degree. But there is no spectacle here. It's all dialogue and, one supposes, costumes.

To be fair, the language is excellent. A little older than Shakespeare and pitched to sound even more archaic, it's pretty tough going without notes, but it's well done. It's fiercely committed to regular iambic pentameter and ornate, elevated language. Examples are found on every page, such as this bit of speech where Porrex explains that he had to kill his brother to save his own life:

When thus I saw the knot of love unknit,
All honest league and faithful promise broke,
The law of kind and troth thus rent in twain,
His heart on mischief set, and in his breast
Black treason hid; then, then, did I despair
That ever time could win him friend to me:
Then saw I how he smiled with slaying knife
Wrapped under cloak; then saw I deep deceit
Lurk in his face, and death prepared for me...

Too much of a good thing, though. In a play filled with long speeches, one speech near the end runs to 100 lines, over 800 words, the longest (I'm informed) in Elizabethan theater. I can't imagine how hard it would've been to stage this effectively. But... hmmm... in a modern theater, imagine a screen showing the murders and battles and betrayals, the action playing out as they describe it...

I dunno. The play is interesting, though, if not deeply compelling. Recommended only for some folks.

View all my reviews