Particularly beautiful are two of Gerald Place's contributions,
John Wilson's lovely Take O take those lips away
and the anonymous Come away death.
The Consort Journal (Dolmetch Foundation)
illustration: Isaac Oliver Allegory of Love
Introducing a new play about Robert Armin
More Fools than Wise
This new play is inspired by recent scholarship which explores a closer collaboration between Shakespeare and his clown Robert Armin than was previously thought, not only in the portrayal of the fool/clown characters, but also in the more extensive provision of music after Armin joined the company.
Armin has left the King’s Men, after being passed over for the role of William Somers, the clown in Henry VIII, following a disagreement with John Fletcher, the play’s co-author. As he packs up his belongings he comes across the skull of Yorick from Hamlet, setting off a chain of reminiscences.
Songs of the period punctuate the story of his association with Shakespeare ranging from Blow, blow thou winter wind in As you Like it to Full Fathom Five from The Tempest. The play closes with Orlando Gibbons’ The Silver Swan from which the play takes its title.
The play can be presented in any suitable venue and lasts about 65 minutes, with or without interval.
An excerpt from the play script and an audio sample can be found below.
(Illustration: Garrick's Temple to Shakespeare at Hampton Riverside)
An excerpt from the end of the play:
There was a hint in The Tempest that it might have been Will's last play for The King's Men. Certainly the last on his own. But All is True, the King Henry VIII play was still to come. It was to be quite a spectacle; full of processions and music - so I was surprised not to be approached.
Surely the most famous clown of all, you remember him, King Henry’s fool Will Somers, was a role tailor made for me? But as the prologue says:
I come no more to make you laugh... such noble scenes to draw the eye to flow, we here present. Only they that come to hear a merry bawdy play, or to see a fellow in a long motley coat guarded with yellow, will be deceived.
And who wrote that prologue and half the play? That bastard Fletcher; but then we never really saw eye to eye.
So no Will Somers in his clown’s garb. When I heard this, I knew how old Will Kemp must have felt as his own character Falstaff was written out of Henry V and in the play we only hear of his passing. I know Kemp left the company after the second Henry IV play in virtual disgrace - you recall that unfortunate business with The Merry Wives of Windsor - but this was twisting the knife. Just as the public had expected Will Somers in Henry VIII, so they expected a reprise of Falstaff, the Fat Knight. As Kemp says in his Epilogue.
Our humble author will continue the story with Sir John in it and make you merry.
What did they get, spoken by the new King, Henry V ?
I know thee not old man. Fall to thy prayers, How ill white hairs become a fool and a jester.
My cue to retire gracefully it seems and avoid Falstaff's fate.
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Click below for an audio excerpt from the play lasting for about 7 minutes
Further Sound Clips
Lawn as White as Driven Snow
by John Wilson from A Winter's Tale
Click below for these two songs
https://on.soundcloud.com/Y12O11CkgX5SCrOaM0
https://on.soundcloud.com/0c5avQiagfJ8lnGPww
When Daffodils begin to peer by Anthony Holborne from A Winter's Tale
Reviews
The Bard himself would have been hard-pressed to come up with better music : this is splendid.
Early Music Review
These performances of English music around 1450 are preferable to many earlier ones and are to be warmly welcomed.
The Gramophone
Gerald Place was particularly adept at shifting within seconds from singing to reading to playing on one of his recorders and back again. There was much finely-judged singing, such as the sonorous Full Fathom Five and the doleful, plaintive O Death Rock Me Asleep. Heartsease for solo viol was most affecting.
Frome Festival
I look forward to more from these excellent performers. Elizabethan Review USA
(Illustration: The Globe Theatre, Vischer)
Biography
(Illustration: possible portrait of Shakespeare)
GERALD PLACE first worked on Shakespeare songs as an undergraduate at Cambridge. He then pursued a busy career as an ensemble and solo singer all over Europe. He directed his own group The Gesualdo Consort (London) whose notable appearances included festivals at Harrogate, Bath, Prague and Paris. With this group he collaborated with Werner Herzog on his Gesualdo film Death for Five Voices which won an Italia prize. Gerald was both co-musical director and shared the narration of this documentary. Further work in the field of the spoken word included features for BBC Radios Three & Four, France Inter and his own classical music spot on LBC.
He resumed his interest in the songs of Shakespeare’s plays when he prepared performing editions for a Naxos CD including many songs not hitherto recorded. He subsequently lectured on this topic for the Brighton Early Music Festival and The Royal Musical Society amongst others.
As a gamba player he sought an outlet for self-accompanying these songs and the idea of a play about Robert Armin seemed to give an opportunity to place this music in a dramatic context. So More Fools than Wise was devised as a solo vehicle. In recitals he also works with pianist & harpsichordst Richard Lyne.