I Have No Name

I saw Richard II performed this evening. What a striking play! Themes of treason, familial vs. national commitments, and the wisdom of the old v. the impatience of the young weave through it.

At the beginning of the play, Richard II listens to flatterers and undermines his counselors, his uncles, replacing them with his young friends. From this beginning, the play examines a world turned upside-down.

In response to the king's harmful actions, traitors rise up against him and threaten him. The king is forced to give up his crown to his cousin. In the process, he realizes that he, too, is a traitor, even of himself, and that, consequently, he has no name.

The new "king," Henry IV, forgives his cousin, who is part of a treasonous plan against him. The cousin's father has come to turn in his son as a traitor to the king, and the cousin's mother comes to beg that her son be forgiven. Henry IV forgives his cousin, as he hopes to be forgiven.

In the end, Richard II is killed in prison by someone who mistakenly believed that Henry IV willed it. While Henry IV did will it, and so accepts the guilt, he does not condone the action and sends the regicide-er away.