Shakespeare meets Game of Thrones in Stratford Festival's Breath of Kings
Powerful families, love, murder, betrayal and intrigue – Shakespeare's history plays have a lot in common with HBO's hit series Game of Thrones.
And this season's production of the Henriad may just be the festival's most accessible attempt. Actor and adaptor Graham Abbey has taken the four plays and condensed them into two productions.
"The Henriad" is what Shakespeare aficionados call his second four-part history cycle. It includes:
- Richard II.
- Henry IV, Part 1.
- Henry IV, Part 2.
- Henry V.
Together, they tell the story of Richard II of England, his murder, the crowning of Henry IV of England followed by the rise of his son, Henry V, from youth to war hero.
"The addiction to those stories of great families warring, and one falls and another rises, and that sort of epic drama was what I was attracted to in these plays. They are a very early version of the Game of Thrones," Abbey said.
Individually they are Rebellion and Redemption, together: Breath of Kings. The name even sounds like a George RR Martin book.
Though it's still six hours long, total, Abbey worked on whittling down the plays for more than a decade, work that was inspired by a series of events on September 11, 2001.
Listen to him tell that story, in the audio below.