SHAKESPEAREAN CHARACTERS
Since Power/Trip is a play-within-a-play, it features two sets of characters: the modern-day community members (Richard, Eden, Joseph, Brenda, Eli, and Naomi) and the characters from Shakespeare's Richard II. The community members are ever-evolving as the script changes, so this website will focus on the Shakespearean characters. It's also important to remember that the community members rehearse an adaptation of the play, cut down to its most important parts. As a result, some of the Shakespearean lines in the script are voiced by different characters than in the original play, and many characters have been combined. Look at this character chart to see all of the characters in the original Shakespeare and scroll down to learn more about the ones featured in Power/Trip (note: this may change as the script does).
RICHARD II (played by RICHARD)
Delusional. Intensely charismatic. Devout when it suits him. Arrogant. Musical. Eloquent. Privileged beyond belief. Has all the power and doesn’t think it can be taken away from him. (Power/Trip, pg 3)
King Richard II is the son of the Black Prince, a military hero and larger-than-life figure in English history. But Richard, who ascended to the throne at age 10, is very different from his father. He enjoys the privileges and power that come with the kingship but is an ineffective ruler. He taxes, borrows, and takes money to give his friends positions of power and to pursue expensive and ill-advised military actions. Richard is king at a time when kings are thought to be ordained by God and answerable to God alone. He is deeply invested in this idea and in playing the role of king—taking on a regal air and speaking in poetic and beautiful language full of metaphor and imagery. It takes him a long time to realize the appearance of kingliness is not enough to retain the crown. By then it is too late: Henry Bolingbroke has eclipsed him in popularity and power and forces Richard to cede the throne.
This meme is referring to the Peasants' Revolt, which Richard squashed in 1381.
HENRY BOLINGBROKE (played by JOSEPH)
Quiet. Confident. Strategic. Grounded. Well-liked. Has no use for the psychedelic, transcendent elements of religion, but understands its social + political utility. (Power/Trip, pg 3)
In stark contrast to the theatrical and regal Richard II, Henry Bolingbroke is assertive and straightforward—a man of action rather than words or grand gestures. In the play's first scene he accuses Thomas Mowbray of treason and conspiring to murder the Duke of Gloucester. After Richard banishes him from England, Bolingbroke defies the king and cuts his banishment short after Richard seizes his dead father's lands and wealth. Bolingbroke returns to England with an army, gains supporters, corners Richard, and forces the king to abdicate the throne. He takes on kingly authority even before he wears the crown, quickly trying and sentencing Richard's favorites and having those who plot against him executed.
JOHN OF GAUNT
(played by BRENDA)
Mythic and wise; a seer who can predict the future. A firm believer in both God and consequences. Can cross between worlds. (Power/Trip, pg 3)
In his younger days John of Gaunt was a powerful man who helped guide his nephew, Richard II, in the early years of his rule. Now Gaunt is an old man who believes strongly in the divine right of kings but is conflicted because he realizes Richard is an incompetent and destructive leader. He also knows Richard was behind the death of Gaunt's brother, the Duke of Gloucester. As he nears death, Gaunt displays a heartfelt and deeply emotional love for England, which he compares to the Garden of Eden; this love, and his proximity to death, embolden him to unleash frank criticism of Richard's governance.
NORTHUMBERLAND
(played by EDEN)
Deeply intelligent. An atheist. A radical. A gardener. Suspicious of power in all its forms. Fed up. Finds faith in other people. (Power/Trip, pg 3)
An English nobleman with little love for Richard. When the King leaves for Ireland, Northumberland draws most of the rest of the nobility into a conspiracy against him to help Henry return. He quickly becomes Henry’s second-in-command and hatchet-man, and is the first to begin to regard Richard as deposed. He is a prosaic man, though he manages to entice Richard to leave the security of Flint Castle, and insists that Richard’s deposing be carried through to the letter as the Commons insist, including forcing Richard to agree that he has done wrong and is therefore justly overthrown. He is quite unsentimental, quick to cease speaking respectfully to the deposed King and to force him and his Queen to part, not to mention arrest the Bishop of Carlisle. He is generally in charge of executions for Henry IV.
ROSS
(played by ELI)
Lost and searching. Wants to believe in something, but can’t get over his doubts. Tentative. (Power/Trip, pg 3)
Lord Ross a nobleman greatly dissatisfied with Richard’s rule and over-taxation. Afraid of what might come next, he is quickly won over to Bolingbroke's rebellion by Northumberland. In real-life history, Lord Ross is based on Sir William Ros, a medieval English nobleman (a Baron), politician and soldier. Ros was alongside Henry when Richard surrendered his throne to the invader, and later voted in the House of Lords for the former king's imprisonment. Ros benefited by the new Lancastrian regime, achieving far more than he had ever done under Richard. He became an important aide and counsellor to King Henry, and regularly spoke for him in parliament. (Sorry that I couldn't find any pictures of him!)
YORK
(played by NAOMI)
Full of religious faith. A mother. Works in a grocery store. Just getting by, which can sometimes make her blind to the struggles of others. There is much she doesn’t see. In the beginning, doubles as MOWBRAY. (Power/Trip, pg 3)
Fiercely loyal to his nephew, Richard II. Knowing this, Richard leaves him in charge while he is away in Ireland. York unfailingly takes Richard's side—that is, until he doesn't. When it becomes clear Bolingbroke will be king, York somewhat reluctantly joins Bolingbroke's rebel army. It seems his loyalty is to the monarch, whomever that may be—not to any particular man. This is akin to Gaunt deciding his loyalty lies more with England than with its king. After York switches his allegiance to Bolingbroke, he seems eager to prove his loyalty, quickly turning on his son, the Duke of Aumerle, who is plotting the new king's murder.
THOMAS MOWBRAY & GREEN
(played by NAOMI)
Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk - part of the king's trusted counsel of advisors. At the top of the play, Henry accuses him of murdering of the Duke of Gloucester (another advisor, as well as Gaunt's brother/Henry's uncle) and of corruption on a grand scale. He forcefully denies all these charges. Deeply attached to England, he is distraught at being exiled. Though he denies having been a traitor to the last, in his exile he goes on crusade, often a way of atoning for sins. He is forty years old.
Sir Henry Green - one of Richard’s friends, deeply disliked by the nobility for being a commoner and having the King’s ear. He convinces Richard of the necessity of going to war in Ireland, but hearing of Henry’s return rushes to tell the King not to leave. However, he arrives too late. He is aware that only Richard’s love keeps him and his other friends safe. He is put to death by Henry on a variety of charges.
EXTON
(cast as EDEN,
actually played by ELI)
A conspiracy theorist.
Sir Piers Exton - the murderer of Richard II. Exton, an ambitious nobleman who wishes to curry favor with Bolingbroke, the new king, decides in 5.4 that he will murder the old one, believing that Bolingbroke has expressed a desire that this deed be done. In 5.5 Exton leads a gang of hired murderers against Richard in his cell at Pomfret Castle, and they kill the ex-king, although Exton suffers pangs of conscience. He presents the corpse to Bolingbroke, now Henry IV, hoping for a reward, but the king rejects him.
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In actuality, we don't know for certain why Richard II died, let alone whether he was murdered. Through the inclusion of Exton, Shakespeare presents us with one of the most common theories.Shakespeare took the account of Exton's deed from his chief source, Holinshed, but the anonymous French author of Holinshed's source, probably a member of Queen Isabel's household, apparently invented the story. No other early source mentions Exton or supposes that Richard died violently; the only other contemporary chronicler asserts that Richard was starved to death, either by his jailers or by his own will. This source, also French, has its own propagandistic bias, and Richard may well have died of natural causes. His skeleton was exhumed and examined in the 1870s, and no evidence of violence was found. We cannot say conclusively how the ex-king died, but, in any case, Henry IV's rejection of the murderer appears to be Shakespeare's own addition to the tale, possibly in anticipation of the opening of 1 Henry IV. A similar story concerning Thomas a Becket and Henry II was only one of several apocryphal anecdotes that might have served the playwright as a model; an account in Plutarch was another.
http://hudsonshakespeare.org/Shakespeare%20Library/Character%20Directory/CD_richard2.htm