York Shakespeare Project in rehearsal for Irwin Appel’s production of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3, I Am Myself Alone. Picture: John Saunders
HOW come an American theatre professor is directing York Shakespeare Project’s production of Henry VI for York International Shakespeare Festival next week?
Irwin Appel, Professor of Theater at University of California Santa Barbara and founder and artistic director of Naked Shakes, first encountered YSP in 2015 when he came to York on a tour of Europe researching Shakespeare’s History plays. He saw Maggie Smales’s all-female Henry V, a few days after visiting Agincourt, and loved it so much, he vowed to come back to direct for YSP.
Ten years on, that vow comes into play from April 22 to 26 when Irwin stages Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3, I Am Myself Alone, in a version of the trilogy condensed into one play running for two and a half hours for a York community cast of 21.
“In 2014 I had the ridiculous idea to distil the eight Shakespeare History plays into two plays, and I wanted them not to be ‘marathons’ but each to be the length of a typical Shakespeare play: no more than three hours,” recalls Irwin, who has been producing the Bard’s work in the United States and internationally since 2006.
“I entitled it The Death Of Kings, a line from Shakespeare’s Richard II, divided into I Came But For Mine Own, comprising Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V, and The White Rose And The Red, comprising Richard III and the Henry VI trilogy.”
He then went on a year’s sabbatical that brought him to Europe in 2015. “I’m also a professional actor, director, composer and sound designer, who’d never imagined he would be a college professor,” says Irwin, who trained at Princeton University and the Juilliard School in New York City.
“I was pursuing ‘being a star’ as an actor, but then came to the point where I wanted an artistic home, and I’ve been at University of California Santa Barbara for 26 years now, but also continuing to direct and design throughout the United States, Europe and in China.”
He used his research sabbatical to seek out plays, theatres and sites in Britain and France. “I wasn’t looking for historical accuracy per se in plays, because I wanted to feel the ground beneath my feet, to observe how the light came into a room or a castle, for example, and went to some extremely interesting places, like being on the battlefield of Agincourt on October 25 2015, the 600th anniversary of Henry V’s victory there. That was a quite a feeling,” he says.
He decided he would travel from London to York and it was then that he saw a small advert for YSP’s Henry V. “I fell in love with the production, set in a munitions factory in the First World War. I fell in love with York. I love cities that are very contemporary but at the same time present their history, and I reckon York does that with great balance.
Welcome to York: York Shakespeare Project chair and producer Tony Froud, right, greets American university professor Irwin Appel, director of next week’s production of Henry VI
Once Irwin’s Henry VI application was successful, he headed back to York for auditions last November at Southlands Methodist Church. “I was in Europe, playing Shylock at the Estates Theatre in Prague, where Mozart had debuted his opera Don Giovanni in 1787,” he recalls. “After that I came to York and was very excited to cast Maggie [Smales] as Warwick after seeing her Henry V.”
Creating his Henry VI has been a labour of love. “Through The Death Of Kings, I have an affinity for the History plays, which I feel have some of Shakespeare’s greatest material,” says Irwin .
“I’ve condensed the plays to tell the story and the character arcs at a manageable length. I’ve chosen I Am Myself Alone [as the subtitle] as it’s a line that Richard, Duke of Gloucester – later to be Richard III – says about himself at the end but it also applies to Henry VI and many other characters in the play and encapsulates what the play is about.”
Building his production around a bare space, a crown and a throne, he will utilise his ensemble cast to “engender actor-generated theatricality and transformation in a physical theatre piece that tells a cautionary tale of power and greed that shows how a tyrant can rise in a torn and broken society”.
The theatrical style will be in keeping with Naked Shakes, the company he founded at UC Santa Barbara and is now into its 20th season.
“Our desire is to create raw, energetic and thrilling Shakespeare productions through using the power of the actors and the imagination of the audience,” says Irwin, who has been joined in the rehearsal room by movement coach Christina McCarthy, from UC Santa Barbara, and fight director Jeff Mills, from DePaul University, Chicago.
“When I set out to do The Death Of Kings, I was not looking to do ‘museum Shakespeare’ but Shakespeare as an allegory for our times. When I did it in the States, it was at the time of the primaries when Donald Trump first ran to be the Republican presidential candidate – trying to be king.”
Looking forward to next week’s run, Irwin says: “I feel that this is a truly special company. I’m honoured that they invited me and I would like to make the people of York proud that they allowed an American to direct a play about the House of York in York.”
York International Shakespeare Festival presents York Shakespeare Project in Henry VI: I Am Myself Alone, Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, April 22 to 26, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: yorkshakes.co.uk or tickets.41monkgate.co.uk.
In Focus: A Conversation with Irwin Appel, York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, April 26, 5pm
Irwin Appel
IN this special session, Professor Anne-Marie Evans interviews Irwin Appel to discuss his varied and distinguished career, Henry VI, the importance of the York International Shakespeare Festival and York Shakespeare Project, and all things Shakespeare.
Evans is Professor of American Literature and Pedagogy and Head of School for Humanities at York St John University; Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a long-time Shakespeare fan.
As a professional director, actor, and composer/sound designer, Irwin Appel has worked with the New York, Oregon, Orlando, Utah, New Jersey and other prominent Shakespeare and regional theare companies throughout the United States.
In Europe, he has played the title role in King Lear for Lit Moon World, as well as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and Sir John Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 for the Prague Shakespeare Company.
In November 2024, he played Shylock at the Estates Theatre in Prague, where Mozart premiered the opera Don Giovanni in 1787. He is the founder and artistic director of Naked Shakes, producing Shakespeare’s plays in the USA and internationally since 2006.
In 2023, Naked Shakes was selected to bring his original adaptation of eight Shakespeare’s history plays entitled The Death Of Kings as the closing performance in the Verona Shakespeare Fringe Festival in Italy.
He has led workshops and presentations about Naked Shakes throughout the US and in China, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.
He is Professor of Theater at University of California Santa Barbara and is a graduate of Princeton University and the Juilliard School.
Admission is free; tickets at yorkshakes.co.uk.