A Man For All Seasons

One of the key themes of the play that Robert Bolt is trying to get across to us is the idea that "No man can serve two masters", this is proven true since both the Common Man and Sir Thomas More are not able to serve two masters. In the play the Spanish Ambassador Chapuys says to the steward (Common Man) "No man can serve two masters" Within the play this statement is proven true for all the characters, especially for the Common Man and Sir Thomas More. The Common Man, shows himself time and again that he truly serves one master and that master is himself; whereas with More attempts to serve two masters. More attempts to serve King Henry of England, and God. By the end of the play it is shown that More cannot serve two masters despite all his efforts. Robert Bolt uses the sub text given off by the play and only actually writes this one statement in the play showing us that the audience have to have a large degree of understanding and intelligence to get this point across. This theme leads on to "Every man has his price" where Robert Bolt is trying to show us that not all people can be won over with bribes and corruption. In the play Rich is easily bribed whereas Sir Thomas More isn't. Sir Thomas More advises Rich not to go down the same profession as him. This could be Robert Bolt trying to warn us that bribery and corruption can be easily undertaken. This would make the audience think about the relationship with today's ever-changing world and the jobs that people do. It would also put a whole new perspective on the idea of trust and people not knowing who is deceiving them and who isn't. Robert Bolt gets his audience thinking when Sir Thomas More is imprisoned in the Tower, he gets them thinking in one of two ways, one of them would be he has been a martyr for his beliefs and the other would be that he is innocent and that rights under the law such as “innocent until proven guilty” should be protected. In this scene there is also an underlying friendship theme going on between Norfolk and Sir Thomas More since Norfolk is miserable because of the threat to his friend (Sir Thomas More) and this overcomes the bitterness of his quarrel with Cromwell. This scene also shows us that "it should be actions not thoughts" that the law disallows. Throughout the play Robert Bolt wants his audience to think that constitution is the base of society and that whether the state is more important than the individual. Bolt wants us to be convinced that Henry is not prepared to put up with any disagreement. This shows us the power that Henry has over everyone else and that whatever he wants he can get. Robert Bolt wants everyone to have the freedom of conscience and put morality in front of safety and shows us this in his play.

Throughout the play Bolt lets us think that More is going to be all right defeating Cromwell´s attacks, but this doesn’t work out quite the way we expect it to. Robert Bolt is very skilful in recapping all that has gone on by using parallelism. He parallels quite a few conversations, for example the conversation between Wolsey and More he parallels this with More and Rich’s conversation which in turn he parallels with Henry’s and Thomas Mores. There is also another parallel structure with “mans utterly reliable”; this is a parallel between More and Chapuys. The other bit of parallelism in this play in the whole business is about whether “someone somewhere´s collecting information”.

There are some scenes in the play, which would have clear historic documentation that Robert Bolt could research, but there are some in which bolt was skilful and made them up using his own imagination and creativity, for example the scene between Cromwell and Rich in the public house. In this scene there is a reference to the way the king behaved and parallels conversations earlier on in the play. Bolt successfully handles the problem of dealing with a large timescale of history inside three hours and does it in such a way that the audience know what year it is and can still understand what is going on. He hasn’t made it seem disjointed or seem complicated and this was very skilful of Bolt.

Bolt manages to start and end the play quite skilfully with the same character, the Common Man, I think that if anyone else were to write a play about the same subject they would find it hard to get the audiences attention without confusing them but Bolt presents it to the audience in a simple and dramatic way by using the common man to act as a link between the actors and the audience. He keeps the audiences interest all the way through by using little bits of subtext here and there. Robert Bolt uses the characters in such a way that everyone thinks they know what is going to happen to that character later in the play but instead of it actually happening the opposite or something different happens. Bolt creates psychologically realistic characters because they act as we know human beings react and he makes characters more interesting by contrasting them with each other, for example Chapuys and Cromwell, both of them are trying to get the same information about Sir Thomas More. There are also characters, which are fickle and can change their minds very easily about their beliefs and these contrasts with More who is very steadfast and stands for what he believes in. There is a huge contrast between Rich and More. Sir Thomas More is not ambitious but Rich is desperate for anything. Rich tries to flatter Norfolk for a job and Norfolk asks Sir Thomas More whether he recommends him but More just pints him out. This shows us that Sir Thomas More is very literal in his meaning of words. More always takes the meaning of words to their extremities and is a very highly educated man. More has humour and sarcasm with self-clarity and a generosity of spirit. More wants his children to be like him so he has given Meg the best possible education so that she has the best possible talent.

Henry is a very extravagant and splendid character but is really a big baby. This is shown in the scene where he steers his own ship “The Great Harry”. Cromwell earlier explained to the audience “he will wear in every respect a common pilot’s uniform. Except for the material, which will be a cloth of gold.” In this part of story Bolt may be referring to the “Cloth of Gold” as the historical meeting to emphasise the friendship theme. Henry only cares about himself and uses his power to his advantage. He gets what he wants and doesn’t understand much else about politics. He leaves everything up to his advisors and Thomas More. The only thing that Henry put his time and effort into was his music and this is shown in the pay and we also know it to be historically correct. However in the play when we do have his music it was on one of his “passing” visits and we don’t see it we only hear it.

In the last scene the Common Man (Jailer) highlights a key point in Thomas More´s character because he doesn’t want to see More in an awkward position and would help him out but he doesn’t want to get into trouble. Sir Thomas More puts others in front of himself and is a martyr. He isn’t a theoretically idealist and stands up for his faiths, he is a pragmatist. Bolts skill in the use of language is portrayed since he manages to find a compromise between 20th and 16th century language without confusing the audience too much. There are times throughout the play when Bolt is anachronistic, referring to objects in the 20th century, though when he does this nobody would notice them and he manages to get away with it successfully. The play that Bolt wrote is full of tension and excitement since he wants to gain the attention of the audience and keep them in the theatre but not confuse them. He has little climaxes going on in sub–plots which are meant to attract the attention of the audience. Bolt has an extended nautical metaphor throughout the play and shows the themes of the play in a more concrete manner. He refers to this water imagery quite a lot and uses it in a very skilful way. Most of the time the character that is referring or reminding us of the water imagery is Sir Thomas More and he comes up with some unusual examples of water imagery when he is talking to Norfolk about the Sermon on the Mount, “Marsh Mastiffs? Bog Beagles?” Cromwell refers to the water theme as well.

Bolt prevents the play from becoming too gloomy and serious by using the wit and irony of Thomas More and the sadistic manner of Cromwell. He uses the Common Man as the main opposition against anything that happens in the play, and uses humour in his narrator bits to the audience.

Bolt uses unusual stage techniques for a rather unusual play. At the beginning of the play a very unusual lighting techniques is used because it casts shadows all over the place and is not natural like it should be for a play. The audience see all the scene changes, and this seems unconventional and novel. At the beginning the Common Man has a basket in front of him, which he puts his costume on from and symbolises himself as one person or another person. The throwing of the Cardinals Hat and the red robe into a spotlight signifies the death of Wolsey, the common man then bundles them up and puts them into the basket and that is the end of that character. The costumes that are used are very simplistic and symbolic; when the jury convict Thomas More they are wearing grey caps which are meant to show the audience that they are the jury. Usually in theatre the stage lights stay down whilst the scene is set but Bolt wants the audience to see the change, maybe to keep their interest, so the lights come up and then the set is lowered down. This is also where the Common Man comes on and gives the audience a brief synopsis of what has happened between the scene changes so that the gap is filled and that the audience don’t feel as though they’ve lost the plot.

The Common Man is an effective device to maintain interest, interpret the action and convey the themes. He is like the Chorus in ancient Greek drama: their role was to review the action, explore motivations and issues, prognose what might happen and explore any consequences. They related the action to everyday life and the audience's own frame of reference in today's time. The Common Man does this too. Like them, he is the continuing link with the audience.

Bolt describes him as "a device to draw the audience into the play, not thrust them off it. " In other words, Bolt wanted to retouch a common chord at crucial points in the play, to reach the ordinary bloke and his wife in London's streets and by implication in the theatre watching the play and to reflect their everyday twentieth century values and their pragmatic approach to life so as to contrast it with More and his medieval world view. This device was intended both to relate to More however ironically and politely but not sympathetically and to locate him on that moral pedestal he chose (or was finally forced to chose) for himself so far away from common people's concerns. Nonetheless, his role does not alienate us from More; it merely contextualises it in that society at that time.

Bolt characterised More as a man as a man who could never give up until his word had gotten across to the foolish people. This would have worked for More if the rest of the departments even the members of the church had stuck with him. But only the foolish get the worse of it, excluding More. “Yes what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to go after the devil?” This is what More said. I think this shows that More is different than the people against him are. In More´s last words he said to Margaret “ in matters of conscience the loyal subject is more likely to be loyal to his conscience than to any other thing”. In my opinion More is a saint because he never let go of his beliefs in the law and his faith. Bolt wrote A Man for All Seasons probably without realising its relevance to modern day teenagers since teenager’s need a real example of moral responsibility. We do need our heroes, saints, exemplars who live out a theory on principle. Teenagers respect risky behaviour and he tried to play it out safely. Alas Silence was not his protection. More was eminently courageous

"He drags the basket into the light and again indicates there is no costume in it. Cromwell takes a small black mask from his sleeve and offers it to him."

This again shows the alienation effect, the common man obviously wasn't expecting to be the headsman as he had no costume, it is as if Cromwell is letting him know that he is not doing a bad thing. Cromwell knows that he did no wrong and so shall go to heaven. The common man now has an identity as the headsman. When Cromwell takes the mask from his sleeve the whole audience can see him doing it and so again it breaks the realism even at an intense moment. This break in reality might get the audience to think about the morality of what is happening to More and whether they think that he should die or not, this is exactly what Bolt wanted, the audience to be thinking about the theory.

In Act two we are told the exact stage settings,

"Bars, rack and cage flown swiftly upwards"

This happens all in front of the audience so the idea showing the audience that it is not real is done here, they can see the change of scenery so it now is impossible to believe that what they see is real.