What Could Have Been: The Role of the Theatrical Character in Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Henry IV, Part 1

By Ian Fortey, High School Student

Examining the role of the most theatrical characters in three plays by Shakespeare.

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

Characters who engage theatrics are often the most captivating in Shakespeare’s plays. Those
who are the most dramatic, who disguise themselves, tell inviting tales and lies, stage plays within
the play and who pretend to be what they are not are the characters who stand out in readers’
minds. Henry IV, Part 1, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet all have such engaging characters, from
supporting characters like Mercutio and Falstaff, to the central characters of Prince Hal, Romeo
and Hamlet, who serve to develop these stories. Without these characters being as they are;
deceitful, crafty, engaging showmen and the like, the stories would be unable to unfold as they do,
and would not be entertaining, or interesting, for audiences.
Though Henry IV, Part 1 is one of Shakespeare’s historical plays, it contains perhaps his
most famous supporting comedic character, Sir John Falstaff. Falstaff is full of pomp and
pageantry, albeit of an unscrupulous nature, in nearly everything he does throughout the play. His
theatrics are complimented, for the character’s betterment or detriment, by Prince Hal, who also
engages in the same sort of rabble-rousing as Falstaff for a portion of the play.
In act one, scene two, the two men engage in trading friendly insults with one another
until Poins proposes a robbery plan to them. The actions and reactions of both men to the plan,
and the ensuing act as perpetrated by first Falstaff, and then a disguised Hal in robbing Falstaff,
serve as templates for these characters for the rest of the play, and in the case of Hal, reflect a
deceitfulness of personality prevalent even in Henry V. Hal is willing to spend his time with these
lower classes, but as he says at the end of the scene “I imitate the sun, who doth allow the base
contagious clouds to smother up his beauty from the world”. Newlin asks in her article “has he
been manipulating his tavern friends for his own purposes?” and the answer is apparently yes. He
uses Falstaff for his own amusement when robbing him in disguise, simply to hear the old man’s
excuse later on. When the two engage in a spontaneous dialogue, in the roles of Hal and his
father, Hal makes it clear that the time will come when he will banish “plump Jack”. For now, Hal
is playing the part of the fool, when in fact he has much more in mind for himself. His artful
deception is played against all; his father, his friends and his people. His very life, at least
according to him, is a masque he has been staging, but one that will soon end.
Falstaff, on the other hand, is as equally deceptive, or more deceptive than Hal, such as
when he makes up lie upon lie to explain how his robbery was foiled, but in what an audience is
apt to perceive as a much more likeable way. Tiffany likens Falstaff to Silenus, tutor of Bacchus,
serving as Hal’s “fat, old drunken companion who lends humor to Dionysian celebration”. In
comparing Falstaff with Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium, Tiffany makes him out to be a grand
showman, which, for an audience of the play, he truly is. The mock insults he exchanges with
Hal, and his tale of the robbery gone wrong at Gad’s Hill are very comic and entertaining. From
these early scenes, to the end when Falstaff takes the credit for Hotspur’s death, Hal and Falstaff
play off one another, both to their delight and the audience’s. Both characters use one another
almost as props in their own plays; Hal using Falstaff as a surrogate father and to disguise himself
as baser than he truly is, while Falstaff uses Hal for his position in the hopes that some of Hal’s
fortune may find its way to him.
Without Falstaff being the sort of character he is, Hal would not find himself in the
position he is in; disdained by his father and looked upon as foolish by others. The very structure
of his character, and the play around him, is based on the perception others have of him and how
he changes from the beginning to the end of the play, from irresponsible to responsible, from inept
to a future king. If he was not spending his time associated with those who are underhanded and
deceptive, then he would not have to prove himself to be greater than them, nor would his father
and Hotspur underestimate him so. But, if we are to believe Hal, this is the deception he had been
orchestrating all along, and he is perceived and treated exactly the way he has planned.
Had Hal “played it straight” from the beginning of the play, that is to say, had he been
dutiful as a Prince, there would be little conceivable reason to imagine the presence of a Falstaff in
the play, for Hal would never been seen in the tavern. Conversely, had Falstaff been an honest
fellow, then the comedic interest in the character would be lost and he would be, theoretically, a
very boring character. The play, likewise, would be very boring. The story of King Henry going
to war, and his son Hal killing Hotspur is what the reader is left with. The play needs Hal as a
carousing, irresponsible Prince, just as it needs Falstaff as the boorish old knight in order to give
credence to the story as it develops, and to make it entertaining for an audience.
Something very similar to Henry IV, Part 1 happens in Romeo and Juliet, insofar as it
relates to the central characters. Where Hal seems to become a different person as the play
progresses, so too does Romeo. The development of Romeo and Juliet is inextricably linked to
Romeo’s eccentric nature and maturation as a poet, a lover, and a friend. Though he often pales in
scenes compared to Mercutio, the true showman of the play, the Falstaff to Romeo’s Prince Hal,
Romeo is no simple character. He begins as a love-sick poet, spouting poorly crafted
Petrarchanesque poetry, lines such as “when she dies, with beauty dies her store”(1.1 224), for his
“love” Rosaline. Yet as the play progresses, Romeo utters some of the most famous lines in
English literature, such as the “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks”(2.2 2)
speech, and his very name comes to symbolize the idealized lover is for modern audiences. As
this play is a Romance, the development of Romeo as a lover, and as a person, is an integral part
of the story development.
Romeo limits his theatrics in the play, most often to spouting grand love poetry, and the
rare act of underhandedness, such as disguising himself and sneaking into the Capulet’s party,
which, had he not done, he would have never met Juliet and the ensuing story would never have
occurred. As well, by disguising himself to enter the Capulet’s feast, Romeo and his party set into
motion Tybalt, who is insulted by their presence and seeks to make right the wrong that has been
done to his family, which of course leads to the eventual death of Mercutio, and of Tybalt himself
at the vengeful hands of Romeo.
While Romeo may limit his theatrics, his friend Mercutio seems to always be performing.
Mercutio manages to bring more to the story than just his own character. As Pearlman says,
Shakespeare uses Mercutio for what he calls “invention within invention, or second-order
creation”. By this technique, Shakespeare’s character is able to create its own character, in
Mercutio’s case, Queen Mab. Pearlman goes on to say that “these second order
creations...although vivid in themselves, are not autotelic, but serve to add dimensions to the
action proper and, particularly, to the characters who invoke them.” Given this idea, Mercutio
could be viewed as operating as a fictionalized Shakespeare within his own play, creating new
characters and relating fantastic stories that captivate the audience. Mercutio is, after all,
recognized as one of the most engaging characters in this work, and his fanciful Queen Mab
speech, perhaps better called a rant, is one of the best examples of why. His story is spur of the
moment and very vivid, just as his many quick witted jokes with Romeo are. These aspects are
what make Mercutio such a compelling character to an audience, his creative mind and sharp wit,
and perhaps could be what made him such a beloved friend of Romeo. Even when he is dying,
Mercutio still finds the time to make jokes, telling Romeo “Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall
find me a grave man.”(3.1 101-102). Again, it is only when Mercutio has died, that Romeo
decides he must take revenge on Tybalt, provoking the feud between the two families even
further, and setting into motion what will be, by the end of the play, the downfall of both Romeo
and Juliet. The central story develops from Romeo’s first act of theatrical deception in the play,
disguising himself to enter his enemy’s house, and builds from there into tragedy as Tybalt kills
Mercutio, Romeo kills Tybalt and Paris, and finally Romeo and Juliet both die.
Hamlet, perhaps Shakespeare’s most well known character, far exceeds Romeo and Hal,
and even Falstaff and Mercutio, in his ability to engage in theatrics, though not in the comedic or
lighthearted way many of the characters in the previous two plays do. Whether or not his
theatrics are always intentional or the result of his “madness” is another question. Though his
meeting with the ghost disturbs Hamlet, he says “As I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put
on an antic disposition” (1.5 191-192), meaning that his actions from that point on could be
attributed to nothing more than an act Hamlet is putting on. Smith brings up the point that, after
the “mad” Hamlet confronts Ophelia “Polonius concludes that Hamlet's behavior owes to his
being love-struck...A prince mad for love is much less threatening to the crown's ability to control
discourse than a sane but radicalized prince who wants to undermine the court at its foundation.”
The act Hamlet is putting on then, is one necessary for the story to take place. He needs the
cover of madness in order to bring his father’s murder to light without rousing suspicion. As a
madman, Hamlet is not a threat to Claudius per se, and it is only when Claudius feels threatened,
in act four, scene four, that he seeks to do away with Hamlet.
Like Hal, Hamlet lets the audience know his persona is one crafted by his own design to
further his own ends. But Hamlet goes beyond this theatrical deception. Within the play, he
stages first a dumb show, then a play with dialogue both depicting what he believes to be the
death of his father, all in the hopes of catching the “conscience of the King” (2.2 634). Hamlet
uses his very theatrics to develop this story of revenge to its conclusion. As Brustein puts it, “he
obviously shares with Euripides, Socrates and Plato the belief that the main purpose of art is to
expose the guilty, to chasten character and to improve the state.”
Though Hamlet is clearly the central focus of the story, and the lengths he goes to in order
to fool others and revenge his father are extreme, this sort of behaviour is not unique to him
within the play. Claudius is merely playing the part of a grieving brother, when he in fact is the
murderer. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern pretend to be Hamlet’s friends, when they are spies for
the King. Polonius, not unlike Hamlet, seeks “truth” by means of deceit and underhandedness,
which ultimately leads to his end, when Hamlet stabs him, hidden behind a tapestry, thinking he is
Claudius. The story of Hamlet is wrought with characters who hide the truth and put on a
different face. As Hamlet himself says “God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves
another” (3.1 155-156). The play progresses only through Hamlet’s attempts to unravel these
deceptions with his own, sacrificing relationships with friends and family along the way, until the
end when, fittingly, all the deceivers of the play have died.
Though it sounds almost redundant to say Shakespeare added theatrics to his theatre, the
characters of Hal, Romeo, Mercutio, Hamlet and Falstaff suggest that he was making his
characters explicitly theatrical to achieve the ends of engaging his audience in stories that
otherwise could not be so engaging. The artful deceptions, the Masques, the disguises and the
taking on of roles within his plays serve the purposes of keeping an audience entertained and of
allowing the play to develop fully to its conclusion, with each artful deception linking to another
in some way. Characters and plotlines only develop in the entertaining and interesting ways that
they do out of these artful actions, and had Shakespeare not seen fit to create characters with this
personality trait, his plays would clearly not exist as they do, and what would exist in their stead
could arguably be of little interest to an audience.








WORKS CITED

Brustein, Robert. “Character and Personality in Shakespeare.” New Republic 1/1/96, v214 i1,
p27.
Newlin, Lousia Foulke. “Nice guys finish dead: Teaching Henry IV, Part I”. Humanities
Jul/Aug96, v17 i3, p22.
Pearlman, E. “Shakespeare's Projected Persons”. style Spring 1994, v28 i1, p31.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The New Folger Shakespeare. Ed Barbara A. Mowat and Paul
Werstine. New York: Washington Square Press, 1992.
---. Henry V, Part 1. NFS, 1994.
---, Romeo and Juliet. NFS, 1992.
Smith, David M. “Shakespeare’s Hamlet” Explicator Summer 2001, v58 i4, p174.
Tiffany, Grace. “Shakespeare's Dionysian prince: drama, politics, and the "Athenian" history
play.” Renaissance Quarterly Summer 1999, v52 i2, p366.