Holly Cate
Writing
GLORY
GLORY is the first part in my three-play adaptation of Shakespeare’s War of the Roses saga (Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3 and Richard III). While rooted in Shakespeare’s originals, GLORY is a fresh, provocative adaptation that examines what happens when the rule of law collapses and violence becomes the currency of state.
The centerpiece of GLORY – and the two plays that come after it – is an ensemble of citizens, the Clowns. Largely my creation rather than Shakespeare’s, the Clowns are the people to whom the play happens. They are gardeners, soldiers, messengers and servants. They are outside the palace intrigue, struggling to keep track of who’s on what side. They fight wars they don’t understand and look in vain for heroes to rescue them. Ultimately, they are caught in a web of power and violence that they can’t escape.
As the fabric of society begins to unravel, we see the Clowns become infected by the diseases of those who rule over them. No one is innocent in this play, and no one manages to resist the forces of the society in which they find themselves.
O WAR
O WAR opens months after GLORY ended, as the tensions that were simmering under the surface threaten to boil over into outright civil war. The King is weak, his rivals eagerly eye the throne, and the commons are rising . . . even if they’re not entirely sure why. War is coming.
There are no good choices in war, no right choices – only less wrong ones. Being in war is like looking at your moral compass in a funhouse mirror. O WAR examines the terrible distortion that happens when survival means killing.
In O WAR, we watch a country and its people transformed through war. A winner is eventually declared. But what is left once the dust settles? What lessons have been learned? And has the war really ended? Once the pitched battles are over, the betrayals begin. As the Clowns begin to learn in this play, the safest way forward in this world is to duck.
MEANER CREATURES
The bloody civil war has finally ended. Power has been consolidated. It seems that at last there will be peace. Or will there? Years of war have left deep scars on this world, now haunted by its own bloody history. Ambition remains unsatisfied; scores unsettled. Everyone is armed now – even the Clowns. Meaner Creatures follows the efforts of a traumatized society to reform itself. But will they be able to break the toxic cycle of violence before it breaks them?
Holly Cate © 2023